


Starting a Stone

by stickman



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Bitter Smithing, Developing Relationship, M/M, Pining, Pre-Quest, Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-03-01 19:37:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2785250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickman/pseuds/stickman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>King-in-Exile Thorin Oakenshield leaves the Blue Mountains and travels East, searching for work, and news of his father, and any who will join him on a quest to retake his homeland. At an inn in Michel Delving, he crosses paths with a Hobbit called Bo Took, who turns out to be the most enjoyable company Thorin’s had in ages. But Bo is also elusive, secretive, and somehow unsettling. Thorin also meets Bilbo Baggins, who is charming and inquisitive and very strangely ill—everyone knows it, even if no one will say it to his face. Entirely improper and definitely irrational, Thorin’s fascination with these two Hobbits threatens to lead him away from his quest, as he spends his nights with Bo and his days with Bilbo. For his part, Bilbo just wants to know what’s going on, and why he can never remember where he’s been, or what he’s been doing. Bo Took and Bilbo Baggins share the same face, and the same home, but they are not at all the same, and Thorin knows this and hates it—and there are too many questions, and too few answers all around.</p><p>[a Jekyll & Hyde AU, for thehobbitpanda and the Hobbit Reverse Big Bang 2014]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thehobbitpanda](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=thehobbitpanda), [Demonatic (TheHobbitPanda)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHobbitPanda/gifts).



> Art by thehobbitpanda:  
> [cover art](http://www.thehobbitpanda.tumblr.com/post/105386197896/my-other-hobbitreversebang-prompt-was-a-sort-of)  
> [Thorin, bitter smithing](http://www.thehobbitpanda.tumblr.com/post/105419591956/as-he-hammers-out-the-steel-from-the-old-pipe)  
> [mistaken identities, round 1](http://thehobbitpanda.tumblr.com/post/106423729231/standing-there-hood-up-against-the-chill-of-the)
> 
> Please have a look & like/reblog/leave the artist your thoughts!

 

 

 

> You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others . . .
> 
> —Robert Louis Stevenson, _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_
> 
>  
> 
> You’re not sleeping in you bed tonight,  
>  you’re hoping now to catch whats keeping you awake,  
>  just your body’s mistake,  
>  something to fix fast . . .
> 
> —Lucy Wainwright Roche, "The Bridge"
> 
>  

* * *

 

There’s rain tapping on the windowpane when Bilbo Baggins opens his eyes, squinting against the pale morning light. His nose is cold and there’s a dull ache behind his eyes. Groaning, he turns over and smothers himself with his pillow, burrowing further into the quilts. It’s still early May, but the Shire rains are cool, and bare toes on chilled wooden floors are not what Bilbo wants right now. He wants to go back to sleep, or better still, to go back to last night and tell himself not to have that fourth ale. Or was it the fifth? He never remembers his nights these days, which worries him. It’s not that it’s anything new—this has been happening for years—but usually, if he just concentrates hard enough, he can see things as if he were watching them from very far away, through a clouded glass, the images blurred and the words muffled, but enough to get the general sense. Who he talked to, what he did, where he went. Lately, though, he thinks and thinks and gets nothing but a headache.

            It’s well past second-breakfast by the time Bilbo drags himself out of bed. Shuffling to the kitchen with his quilt around his shoulders, toes curling on the cold flagstone floors, he yawns and nearly trips over his walking stick. Who left that there? Bilbo tugs the curtains shut over the kitchen window and generally feels pathetic as he steps into the pantry and tries to decide what he can cook that will be even remotely appealing. He can’t remember when, exactly, but for days, weeks, possibly a month now, his appetite has been next to nonexistent. It’s the reason he doesn’t go out anymore, begging off teas and dinner parties. To be a Hobbit and not enjoy food isn’t just unheard of; it’s actually unimaginable, enough to make one a social pariah. Bilbo cracks an egg into his skillet and blanches at the smell, pokes it half-heartedly with a spatula. What’s wrong with him? “This is all _your_ fault,” he mutters, and rummages around the mess on his table for a bread knife. Eggs and toast—every Hobbit likes eggs and toast. Surely he will, too.

            Three bites in, his stomach turns. Bilbo pushes the plate away. Dragging his quilt after him, he slumps into the sitting room and stokes the woodstove, curls up in front of the warmth with a book he’s already read and tries to take his mind off things. The afternoon sun plays across the wooden floor and the ornate pattern of his mother’s third-favourite rug. Bilbo dozes and reads, or lies on his side, knees tucked to his chest, and studies the houseplant looking forlorn in the corner. He’s never been much of a gardener. Hamfast would be ashamed.

            “If you can hear me, I hate you,” Bilbo says, speaking to the ceiling. And then, quieter, “Talking to yourself in empty rooms, now. You really are a Mad Baggins.” The sun is setting by the time he gets up and attempts eating again: leftover toast, now gone cold and limp, and some of Prim’s homemade raspberry jam. Warming his toes by the fire, Bilbo sips a cup of chamomile tea and tries to ignore the feeling that he’s forgetting something more, that he’s supposed to be somewhere. He never goes out at night if he can help it, hasn’t really done so since he came of age. It’s another part of why all of Hobbiton gossips about him incessantly, though his neighbours could talk for days about even the most trivial detail, so they’re not the best scale of measurement. When his parents were still alive, and he was newly of age, Bilbo would often go out to the Green Dragon or some party in the Upper Fields, staying out all night under the stars, coming home at dawn wet with dew, propped up on or propping up two or three other Hobbit lads. It wasn’t so bad, then. It’s only recently that he’s completely lost control, and why it should happen now, some eighteen years after he’s come of age, Bilbo has no idea. Even though it’s stopped surprising him, it’s still not normal amongst Hobbits, to be one person by day and another by night, to have two natures inside of oneself, each wanting to get out. The only practical advice he’s ever received was years ago from a friend of his mother’s, who told him to accept it, that if he could reconcile his desires, everything would sort itself out. That hasn’t proved helpful, mostly because Bilbo has no idea what he wants, and more pressingly, why is it only he who finds himself in this state? His mother used to chalk it up to the Took heritage in his blood, but then, she never woke up as a young lass having no memories of her nights. Why him? His family have always been the odd ones out; now that he’s the last Baggins of Bag End, it’s only gotten worse. Bilbo dreads falling asleep at night. He’s almost positive nothing very dreadful happens—he probably gets a bit drunk, or says something a bit too blunt to one of the elders, or composes new songs on the spot—but the fact that it’s happening at all, and keeps happening, actually worries him far more than he’d like to admit. Not that he has anyone to admit it to, these days.

            “Mad Baggins,” Bilbo whispers again, and tilts his tea cup, watches the firelight flicker on the glossy surface. When will it happen? When will the change come over him? If he could just stay awake all night, would he still be himself in the morning? He’s tried it before but can’t remember now. By the time the tea is gone and the fire has burnt down to coals, Bilbo can feel his limbs getting heavy, his mind clouding up. He makes himself stand up, move around, paces a circuit around the room, worrying the rug underfoot, but his steps are getting slower. Shadows creep in around the corners of his vision, shifting blurs that he can’t properly look at, spots here and there that fade out when he blinks his eyes. This is the worst part, worse than waking up the morning after; this is the moment he loses control. It’s not fair, Bilbo thinks, and then he’s gone, and someone else is standing in his place, in his body, wearing his day-old trousers and a smile that doesn’t belong to him.

 

\----

 

In an inn just outside of Michel Delving, Thorin Oakenshield frowns into a mug of ale and hunches his shoulders. There’s a loud hum of conversation all around him, but no sign of the voice he’s been waiting—stupidly, he tells himself—to hear. His cloak is damp from the rain and his stomach is rumbling, but the coin in his pocket is just enough for the ale and a room for the night. Eyeing a plate of sausages at the next table, Thorin wonders how observant Hobbits are. Even if they did notice, he could definitely take them in a fight. But the whole purpose of coming here was to sell his skills, to find some work as a blacksmith, save up enough to provide for the coming winter. Starting an inn brawl is hardly the best way to ingratiate himself. If he were Dís, he’d smile charmingly at someone and receive a free dinner in exchange for some banal conversation, but Thorin’s never been good at either smiling or pleasantries. And his last-ditch hope seems to have stood him up. There’s no sign of the young Hobbit who bought him a meat pie and ale after ale last night, who had, inexplicably, come unto Thorin, touched his arm and leaned up against his side. Thorin scowls at the memory and clamps his jaw shut, turns away from his neighbours’ food.

            It’s been two weeks or so since he left the Blue Mountains behind. The morning he left, under the cover of fog, he’d forbidden himself from looking over his shoulder for one last glimpse of the place he’d spent so many years in but never called home. Home was Erebor. It might as well be on the other side of the world, for all that Thorin can’t get there. All he has are the clothes on his back, his axe, his sword, his boots, and his smithing tools. He’s in no shape to go on some great quest, and that’s exactly what Erebor would require: a great quest, an army of dwarves armed to the teeth, ready to oust the foul Smaug and reclaim their homeland. It’s a dream he’s had for too many years to really believe in anymore. Thorin has had to become practical. Has humbled himself, working for a pittance for the Men of various outlying towns. The Hobbits aren’t warriors; they have no need for weapons, nor statues or monuments to age-old victories. But they are farmers, and Thorin has learned to make neat, efficient scythes and durable ploughshares, and at least when he stands amongst a crowd of Hobbits they don’t tower over him.

            None of which means he’s enjoying himself. Thorin downs the rest of his ale and stomps off to his room for the night—little more than a closet, with not quite enough headroom—to glower at the wall. He should have known better than to think something good had come his way. And yet it’s so hard to shut his eyes and not see tousled blond hair and a sharp smile and all the things he’s never had. Grumbling, Thorin tucks his cloak in tighter around his shoulders and reminds himself of why he’s here: Dís, and her boys, and his people back in the mountains, all counting on him. It’s still early autumn and they’re doing all right. In his heart, Thorin knows they won’t last another winter, not if things stay the way they are now. Their numbers are already too few. Whatever it takes, however useless the title feels, he is King-in-Exile of Durin’s folk and the burden has fallen to him to protect his people.

            When morning dawns he rises with the sun, leaves without breakfast, and makes the trek down to the old mill. The pipe that feeds the water wheel needs replacing, and the gears of the wheel itself have grown rusted and mossy with disuse. When the miller approached him last night with an offer of work, Thorin wanted to scoff—fixing a watermill is hardly his idea of a worthy application of his skills. But payment is payment, and the miller promised food and goods in exchange, including some sets of clothing just the right size for Dwarf lads. Sharpening his axe, Thorin watches the water flow and thinks of the proverb he learned just last night: “The miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill,” Bo Took had said, pitching his voice low, leaning in close. Thorin suspects there was some double meaning there, but linguistic games have never been his forte, particularly not in Westron, not when whispered into his ear by some blue-eyed Hobbit in a crowded inn after dark.

            Thorin chops wood to stoke his makeshift forge with more vigour than is necessary, the grip of his axe a familiar weight in his hands. Bo Took, as he’d introduced himself, was the first Hobbit Thorin has ever met whom he immediately felt would make a fair dwarf. That is to say, they couldn’t stand each other. It was largely Bo’s fault; the Hobbit seemed bent on infuriating Thorin at every turn, always underfoot, always coming back with some cutting remark. But then he’d treated them both to a full supper and challenged Thorin to a drinking contest. There wasn’t a clear winner, and by the time they staggered out of the inn together Bo was asking Thorin to come home with him, and Thorin was this close to saying yes. He tells himself, now, splitting log after log, that he was just after a bed for the night with no additional cost, but he can’t deny that there was more than a bed on offer. That much was obvious.

            As he hammers out the steel from the old pipe, Thorin does what could charitably be called brooding. He’s angry with Bo for not returning last night, and equally—or possibly more—himself for expecting more. They hadn’t made any promises, and Thorin’s not some young lad playing the desperate suitor. So there’s no reason for him to ask for anything more, particularly not when he’d been the one to turn down the initial offer. “Suit yourself,” Bo had said, and didn’t even give a second glance as he slipped away into the crowd. Thorin has the distinct impression that someone else was on the receiving end of that offer not long after, and the thought makes him scowl enough to frighten away the miller, whose name Thorin has learned is Sandyman, and who has come to check on his progress. That won’t do; the Hobbits are already wary enough of him, and he needs their business. Schooling his features into a more acceptable mask, Thorin starts setting up the cross-shaped framework for bending the pipe to form the proper curve. Sandyman comes back as he’s wiping his brow and offers him, hesitantly, a plate of biscuits and a pitcher of water.

            “Thank you,” Thorin says.

            “It’s coming along,” Sandyman observes. Thorin supposes he should say something in return. But social niceties have never been his forte, no matter how hard he tries. It used to be so easy—glare at the proper person, and whatever he needed done would happen without words. Standing at his father’s side, beside his grandfather on the throne, he could have had nearly anything he wanted without any worries. It’s no use thinking of that now, of course. The wealth of Erebor, the long royal lineage, none of it made any difference against dragon-fire.

            “It is,” Thorin tells Sandyman, dragging his mind back to the present moment. “I should be finished by this evening.”

            “We haven’t had a smith about these parts in years. Much obliged for your troubles.”

            “No trouble,” Thorin says, and tries to force a smile. Sandyman doesn’t look convinced.

            “I’ll let you get back to it, then,” he says, and is gone before Thorin can reassure him. With a sigh Thorin starts feeding the pipe through the roller. It's early summer; the trees are full of leaves. Sweat cools on the back of his neck as he works, bringing a welcome chill. Up in the mountains, they're still getting frost every night. Dís will send the boys out to chop wood and stoke the fires, trying to heat their temporary dwellings. They haven’t dug nearly deep enough into the rock to secure proper heat. Dwarven pride keeps them from making a new homeland when their old one still sits empty, waiting for the re-taking. Empty, of course, except for the one force they haven’t been able to overcome.

            For someone with such terrible memories of fire, Thorin certainly spends a lot of time working with it. He’s burnt off his eyebrows more times than he cares to count; his knuckles are nearly permanently singed. The smell of smoke never quite leaves his clothes. If he hadn’t already cut his beard short in disgrace, he’s certain it would’ve caught fire already. It’s not that he isn’t careful. But the forges in Erebor were works of art, the pinnacle of structural engineering, and now he’s bending over a bonfire in some Hobbit’s backyard. Sparks fly. It’s unavoidable. Dís used to make him a salve for burns but he’s long since run out. Are the herbs in the Shire even the same as the ones they used to pick on the slopes of Erebor, or the few they could buy—always overpriced—from the town at the base of the Blue Mountains? Bo would probably know, Thorin thinks, and then shakes his head. He’s here for work, nothing more.

            It’s not uncommon, amongst Dwarves, for a man to take up with another man. Their women are few enough, and of equal standing; nothing is lost by it, and no one begrudges or judges those who choose to do so. As long as they’re not the King, that is, or his royal lineage. Thorin knows he needs to think about courting someone from back home, one of the several friends Dís has introduced him to over the years. Even though he has Fíli and Kíli, his sister-sons, as his heirs, they are not enough for him to bring an end to the line of Durin. What if something happens to the boys? What if one of them, or both of them, prefers men? Thorin cannot be the one to burden them, anymore than he already has, bringing them up in the wild, putting them to work, leaving them on their own with a grieving mother. It’s been years since their father died and Thorin knows the boys don’t remember him, but Dís does. She stays awake at night, sitting up by the fire or standing in the doorway and looking out at the stars, and Thorin knows—because he’s grown too used to keeping an eye on people—from the look on her face that she’s seeing the past, not the present. The way things used to be. It’s nothing more than a memory now, something written in Khuzdul in the charred books of court records, something no one will ever read. Unless and until, that is, they retake Erebor.

 

The inn at Michel Delving, he learns, has the unlikely name of The Bird and Baby. Thorin sees neither of those things as he ducks in the door at the end of the day, and for that he is profoundly grateful; what he wants now is a hot meal, and something to drink, not someone’s wailing child. The bird would be acceptable, provided it was dead, cooked, and on his plate. The inn is noisy and dim, Hobbits and travellers mingling around the tables and clustered in front of the fire. Like most Shire structures, it’s low-roofed and wood-paneled, and Thorin itches for some solid rock instead of soft, loamy earth, for cavernous halls and deep chasms. He could never live in a place like this. Sticking close to the outer wall, he makes his way around to a small table by one of the windows. He’s starving. There’s a Hobbit lass with a serving tray weaving in and out of the crowd but he can’t catch her eye. Sandyman the miller paid him well; Thorin could afford a sizeable dinner. That’s the good thing about the Shire: Hobbits, even the smallest Hobbits, prefer even the smallest of their many meals to be massive.

            If only the place wasn’t so crowded, Thorin might get to enjoy a full stomach for the first time in ages. Not even in the Blue Mountains did they sit down to such bounty, and he liked to think that he had set his people up in relative comfort, as best as he could. Impatient, Thorin stands and shoves his chair away from the table. Taking a step back, he connects with something solid. There is a thump and a noise of protest, and when Thorin turns he finds Bo Took at his feet.

            Bo, for his part, has his back against the wall and bare feet splayed out before him, and is glaring up at Thorin. “You’re a brute,” he says.

            “My apologies,” Thorin says, quick to offer a hand. He hauls Bo up, with enough force that the Hobbit stumbles forward, into his chest.

            “Are you doing this deliberately?” Bo asks, looking up at Thorin from under a fringe of pale, mussed hair. Standing this close, Thorin can see the shadows beneath his eyes that are more than the products of candlelight. Bo looks exhausted. He is very close. Thorin could, if he were so inclined, also count the freckles across Bo’s nose.

            “No,” he says, bluntly, and lets his hands fall back to his sides, takes a step back. “No, I am not.”

            “Well, you’ve done it anyway. Now you’re going to have to make it up to me.”

            “Buy you a drink?” Thorin offers, hesitantly.

            Bo grins. “That works.”

            Stepping back again, but more carefully this time, Thorin waves the bartender over and orders them each a pint and a plate of dinner. As they wait, he asks the question he had been meaning not to: “Where were you last night?”

            “Not here,” Bo says. “Elsewhere.”

            “Very helpful,” Thorin grumbles.

            “Oh, were you waiting?”

            “No. I was not.”

            “. . . You were, weren’t you?” Bo looks surprised.

            Thorin clenches his jaw and looks away. “I wasn’t,” he repeats, firmly. Their food and drinks arrive and Thorin tears into a hunk of bread to stop himself from talking. He’s ever been good with small talk.

            Bo eyes him for a minute, considering. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Bilbo is protesting. But then, Bilbo is always protesting. Bo downs half his pint in one go and leans in, across the table, his elbows pushing the plate aside. “If you want me to believe you,” he says, “you’re going to have to try much harder, you know.” He hold’s Thorin’s gaze for a minute, and then leans back. “Now then,” he continues, slicing up roasted partridge as he talks, “I don’t recall getting a proper answer to my question from the other night.”

            “Remind me,” Thorin says, hedging.

            “What would you say to coming home with me?”

            “I don’t know you.”

            “We can fix that,” Bo says, tilting his head sideways and raising his eyebrows, deliberately provocative. He runs his tongue over his lips, very slowly—very pink, Thorin’s mind supplies, not helping in the slightest, like alabaster gypsum, or the soft luster of dolomite—and takes another sip of ale.

            “You don’t know me, either,” Thorin says, and clears his throat. He turns his gaze away, studying the entirely uninteresting wall.

            “We can fix that,” Bo says again. “How about a trade, story for story? What are you _really_ doing here, Mister Blacksmith?”

            “Why should you get to start?” Thorin asks, irritated enough to turn back around and face Bo. The Hobbit grins like he’s just won a not-so-minor victory. As he feels the heat rise to his face, Thorin thinks that’s probably true.

            “I’m quicker on the uptake. Go on. I don’t buy this ‘nomadic Dwarf’ business. You’re up to something.”

            Thorin glances around the inn. Hobbits, mainly, with a couple of Men—no more than four, by his count—and no sign of other Dwarves. No one who would be interested, or listening in. Still, he can’t bring himself to tell the truth. “My family needs the money,” he says instead. “There’s far too much competition for business where we were, so I came out here. Hobbits don’t seem the smithing type.”

            “We had a smith once,” Bo says. “But no one knows what happened to him.”

            “. . . You know, it’s very difficult to tell if you’re lying or not.”

            “Yes, I know. One of my many gifts.”

            “Hmm,” Thorin says, troubled.

            “Come on, then. Your family needs money, you come here, fix some mill wheels, and then just go back into the blue?”

            Thorin flinches. He never said where, exactly, he was traveling from. Does Bo know? Did he somehow give it away, something he said or did, some small clue that he thought nothing of but the Hobbit obviously picked up? Bo looks guileless, but then, Thorin’s seen that face change expression quickly enough and he’s only known it for a grand total of four, perhaps five hours. Straightening his shoulders, he says, blandly, “That’s right.”

            “Never to be heard of again.”

            “Much like your previous smith.”

            “Exactly.”

            “What about you?” Thorin asks, changing their course of conversation. “What are you doing here?”

            “Oh, I live nearby,” Bo says, offhand. Disinterested. Guileless. “Tell me about your family.”

            “That wasn’t enough of an answer. I told you more than that.”

            “No one’s twisting your arm here. You told me of your own volition.”

            “Then I can _not_ tell you of my own volition just as easily.” Thorin takes a drink, swallowing slowly as he eyes Bo from over the lip of his tankard.

            “So you’re not without tricks either,” Bo concedes. “All right. I do live nearby. Not Michel Delving, but east a ways, over in Hobbiton. It’s a bit . . . quiet there, you might say, for my liking.”

            “Perhaps I should have stayed there instead,” Thorin mutters. The crowd has only increased as the hour has grown later, and a particularly raucous—or drunk—gathering of Hobbits have climbed atop one of the tables and started singing.

            “Oh, that’s nothing,” Bo says, when he follows the direction of Thorin’s glare. “You should see a real celebration, a Feast Day or the Lithedays. What, are Dwarves not given to dancing on tables?”

            “No.”

            “You’d need quite a sturdy table, I suppose.”

            “Wha—” Thorin snaps his gaze back to Bo. The Hobbit is shaking a little with barely suppressed laughter. “I’ll have you know,” Thorin says, darkly, “that we Dwarves build excellent tables. You could have an entire troupe of ponies atop one and it wouldn’t even bend.”

            “Good to know,” Bo says, and lets out some of his laughter. “I’ll bring my ponies by later.”

            “You have ponies?” Thorin asks. He’s too eager and he knows it. Making himself sit back in his chair and wiping the interested expression off his face with one rough palm, he reminds himself: Be calm. The mountain is not going anywhere. You will get there. Still, ponies would make the journey that much faster; he could get there that much quicker, be home again that much sooner.

            “That was a joke,” Bo says, because of course it was. “Do you need a pony? I’m sure someone in the Shire would be willing to sell you one, for . . . wherever it is you’re going.”

            “No,” Thorin says.

            “All right,” Bo says, slowly, when it becomes obvious that Thorin isn’t going to say anymore. “Well, it’s your turn, so go on.” He waves a hand over the table. “Let’s continue getting to know each other, shall we? And then we can move on to the rest of it all.”

            Thorin, faced with an open invitation, cannot think of a single thing to ask. He racks his mind quickly, skimming through topics—boring, all so boring—while Bo watches him, unblinking. Thorin’s not used to being watched so closely. There is something just this side of _off_ about Bo’s face, Thorin thinks, almost involuntarily, and then catches himself. “What about your family?” he asks, voice too loud in his urgency to break the silence. It’s a wasted opportunity, but he has the distinct feeling that if he continued to say nothing, the offer would have been withdrawn.

            Bo blinks. “Dead, mostly,” he says, and tosses a potato into his mouth.

            “You have my sympathies,” Thorin says, because he has to say something, and doesn’t know what else would be proper.

            “Why should you offer them? You didn’t know my family.”

            “No, but you did,” Thorin says, and then cringes. Of course Bo knew his family; they were, after all, _his_ family. This is why Thorin shouldn’t strike up conversations, in dimly-lit inns or elsewhere. Dís would be laughing at him, were she here. Of that, at least, Thorin is certain.

            Bo is quiet. “I didn’t know them all that well,” he says, after wiping his mouth. “And there is one . . . other. We don’t get on well, though. Not in the slightest.”

            “A shame,” Thorin says, and his voice chokes. He clears his throat, repeats, “That’s a shame.”

            Waving Thorin’s words aside, Bo says, “He and I each have difficulty accepting the other. He mainly tries to stay out of my way.”

            “Why should he?

            “Because I’m dangerous,” Bo says, and gives a quick grin. “Or did no one tell you?”

            “I must have missed that.”

            “A lot of stories about the Tooks round here.” Bo leans back in his chair, and puts his feet up on the table. He folds his arms over his chest and tilts his head to the left. The firelight catches his face, his pale eyelashes, the curve of his nose. “You should try talking to people sometime, Thorin. You might like it.”

            “I doubt that,” Thorin says, and tries not to stare at the bare toes before him, or the frayed edges of Bo’s trouser cuffs; though the short pants are mud-stained and worn, the cloth is rich and must have been, at one time, expensive. In his own grimy tunic and leggings, their fabric pockmarked with burns, Thorin feels horribly inadequate. What he wouldn’t give to be in full armour. The question of why, precisely, he feels the need for armour for a simple conversation with a Hobbit little more than half his size is not one he wants to answer.

            “You’re talking to me,” Bo points out.

            Thorin looks away. “I owed you an apology,” he says.

            “Hmm. Well, you don’t owe me the rest of your night, but I’d like it all the same.”

            Thorin goes still for a moment. “You’re still . . . interested?” he asks, quietly, and glances up.

            “I thought that was rather obvious,” Bo says, and gives Thorin a look that warms the Dwarf’s face, as if he were still standing over the fires of his makeshift forge from earlier that day.

            “Er, it is now,” Thorin says, and takes a swig of ale. He could use another pint, or two.

            “Out of practice?” Bo asks. He drops his feet, falling forward to land his chair on all four legs.

            Beneath the table, Thorin feels a nudge at his boot, and then up his calf. He starts, slams his hands down on the tabletop in surprise. Bo’s eyes go wide, but only for a moment. Then they are narrowed again, narrowed and hot and dark, and his foot slips behind Thorin’s ankle, pulls the Dwarf closer until Thorin’s stomach is brushing the edge of the table.

            “It’s all right,” Bo is saying, when the ringing in Thorin’s ears subsides enough for him to hear the Hobbit’s soft voice against the din of the crowd. “Fortunately for you, I’m not.”

            Thorin would protest, if he had any ground to stand on. Bo’s right; he is out of practice. The phrase that comes to mind, actually, is “woefully out of practice,” except that Thorin’s not sure he _is_ woeful about it. Or at least, he hadn’t been, all these past years, until right now. Feeling the Hobbit’s heel hooked behind his knee, Thorin’s stomach clenches, and he lets himself be urged forward. The table suddenly seems very small, even for a Hobbit-sized table. No troupe of ponies on this one, Thorin thinks, and swallows, tries to chase away the dryness in his mouth.

            “I’ll let you take the lead, then,” he says, and is strangely gratified to see a flicker of surprise in Bo’s eyes. Thorin downs the rest of his ale and digs in his pack for coins to leave on the table. Bo puts out a hand, stopping him.

            “If I’m taking the lead,” Bo says, “then it’s my pleasure.” He leaves a pile of coins on the table and stands, comes around to Thorin’s side. “Shall we take this someplace more fitting?” he asks, and offers his arm, crooked at the elbow.

            Thorin rises, without taking Bo’s arm. It would look ridiculous, the two of them like that. It should properly be the other way around. He is, after all, the larger of the two; the more imposing, the more likely leader. Some things, he is not yet willing to concede. Bo’s hand drops smoothly to his pocket, as if nothing was ever amiss, and the Hobbit strolls easily out of the inn, leaving Thorin to follow whether he likes it or not. This is a reminder of why he has avoided this for so long. All these negotiations and double-entendres are far too subtle for Thorin’s tastes. Still, he can’t simply walk away, nor even look away from the Hobbit’s back, narrow shoulders and honey-coloured hair weaving through the crowd. Thorin goes after him. There really isn’t another choice.

            The air outside is damp with the chill of early summer. Standing under the lantern hanging beside the inn’s front door, Bo looks back at Thorin and again, just for a moment, Thorin finds himself thinking that something is wrong, something is not quite _right_ , but then Bo is turning and the light is in his hair again, and as the door swings shut behind Thorin, the two of them are left in the relative quiet of the road, alone. Thorin steps forward, catches up to Bo, and, emboldened by their new privacy, reaches out and runs his fingers through the Hobbit’s curls, marveling, captivated. Bo laughs, not unpleasantly, and inserts himself neatly beneath Thorin’s arm as they walk away, the light and rumble of the inn at their backs.

            “How far is it?” Thorin asks. “To your rooms.”

            “Are we not going to yours?”

            “We’ve just left mine behind.”

            “Is that so?” Bo asks, and laughs again. “So much for my grand exit. Well, unless you’d like to retrace our steps, we have quite a walk ahead of us. Are you up to it?”

            “Do you doubt my strength?”

            “I doubt your boots,” Bo says. “They’ve seen better days, and if I had any say, should see no more.”

            “We can’t all of us go barefoot.”

            “And why not?”

            Thorin doesn’t have an answer to that, other than the fact that Dwarf feet are not like Hobbit feet, are not so tough, so accustomed to rough use, and it sounds almost insulting in his head, particularly with this Hobbit at his side. Bo is almost delicate, not slender but small, rounded where Thorin is squared-off, smooth where he is callused and sun-burnt. Bo is, by all appearances, the furthest thing from tough. The contrast is fascinating. Thorin doesn’t want to look away.

            “Have you never worn boots?” he asks.

            Bo shakes his head. “Never in my life. It would be quite the scandal, though. Perhaps I should start.”

            “You like causing scandal, then?”

            “When it suits,” Bo says.

            “Does it often suit?”

            Bo smiles, his lips tight, enigmatic, and gives an easy shrug of his shoulders. They are walking in step now, down the dirt road, away from the lights of town. Thorin’s Shire geography is limited; he can tell that they are walking east, but has no idea of how far they have to go, nor what might lie ahead. Presumably nothing he needs to worry about. These lands have been kept safe for many an age. Thorin tries, very hard, not to feel bitter about that. He mostly succeeds.

            “I take it you’re not partial to scandal?” Bo asks.

            “No.”

            “I don’t believe that you’re only a blacksmith, you know. I haven’t figured out quite what you are yet, but I will.”

            “Is that a promise?”

            “It is.”

            Thorin wishes it wasn’t. Why must his heritage come up now, only to complicate things? Often he thinks of how much simpler it would be, were he really only a blacksmith. The entire legacy of Erebor would no longer rest on his shoulders, or at least, not solely on his shoulders. But there isn’t much use in dwelling on fantasies. Thorin learned, long ago, to let go of his dreams and live only by the things in front of him, the people he can reach out and touch, the ruins before him that can be rebuilt.

            Bo must sense that he’s made Thorin uncomfortable. He steps out from under Thorin’s arm and takes a few steps away, walking backwards, studying Thorin’s face. Thorin frowns. “All right?” Bo asks him.

            “Fine,” Thorin says.

            “Can’t hold your ale?”

            That actually gets a laugh from Thorin. The idea that this Hobbit could out-drink a Dwarf is absurd, nevermind how their last drinking contest went. Bo grins back at him, and skips around until he’s walking forwards again. They turn onto the main road and head out over the White Downs. Thorin has his pack on his back, and his axe, and a sword at his hip; Bo carries nothing but himself, easy and light. Through thin cloud-cover, stars dot the darkness, Lumbar a soft yellow overhead, Eärendil’s Star a brighter white. Bo points these out as they walk, telling Thorin their histories, the Elvish words coming easily to his tongue. Thorin, surprisingly, cannot find it in himself to be offended at the language. Instead he tilts his head back, studies the stars until his neck begins to ache and he trips over a root encroaching on the path.

            “Do Dwarves have names for the stars?” Bo asks.

            “No,” Thorin says, rubbing the back of his neck. “We have names for every rock, every mineral, but I fear we’ve spent too much time underground to bother about the stars.” 

            “It seems a great loss,” Bo says. “So much sky, and you don’t even give it the luxury of a few names?”

            “What good are the stars when you’re in a mineshaft beneath a mountain?”

            “What good are mineshafts?” Bo counters.

            Thorin revises his earlier estimation. Bo would make a terrible dwarf.

            “I’ve offended you, I know,” Bo says, “but I’m not sorry for it. And I won’t take my words back, so you can stop scowling at me. You don’t frighten me.”

            “No?”

            “I’m dangerous, remember?”

            “Hmmm. So you say.” A part of Thorin wants to draw his sword, just to see how Bo would react. But he’s not quite that cruel. Instead, he says, “If you had seen what I have seen, the splendour of the mines, you would not dismiss them so easily.”

            “Tell me about it, then. Convince me.”

            So Thorin tells him—the grandeur of Erebor, its halls shining with golden light, the mineshafts filled with the ringing of hammers and the gleam of mithril, ceilings so high you could not see their ends. Hundreds of chambers, each more splendid than the next, on and on through the mountain, and a bounty of every sort that was the envy of all neighbouring lands. “Every day was the dawn of a new glory, every discovery another step to becoming the greatest kingdom Middle-Earth has ever known,” Thorin says, and fights to keep the emotion from choking his voice. “I could show you such wonders as you have never even dreamt of, like nothing the Shire has ever known. Have you ever seen sunset falling across a hall whose walls are gilded gold?”

            “You know that I haven’t.”

            “You can’t imagine—I can’t do it justice with words, at least not in your language. It’s more than splendour, it’s . . . I would give anything to see that sight again.”

            “Why can’t you?”

            Silence follows Bo’s words. “. . . That was long ago,” Thorin says, after a while, “and far away.”

            The hills have fallen away to fields, and still they walk on. Thorin doesn’t pay their path any attention, too caught up in memories, seeing not the loamy earth before him but smooth-carved rock, staircases hewn straight into the mountainside. Bo leads them through a stile, little more than a gap in a stone wall, and they cross a pasture, exiting into a wood on the far side, past cows lowing gently in the night. This is a landscape Thorin has never known, so different from his home, so unfamiliar. Bo takes his hand in the shadowed wood.

            “Hobbits have keen eyes, you know,” he tells Thorin casually, tugging them onwards. “Keener than Dwarves, or so I’ve heard.”

            “I can hardly see the trees ahead,” Thorin admits, blinking his eyes to clear them of the haze of the past.

            “For people who live so much in the dark, you would think you’d all be a bit better at this,” Bo teases, glancing back at Thorin over his shoulder.

            “We have lanterns,” Thorin retorts. “We’re not uncivilised.”

            “I had no idea,” Bo grins. “Mind your step, tree roots in the path.” He helps Thorin over the uneven ground and onwards, twisting to dodge low-hanging branches. “It’s the wrong time of year now, of course, but in the summer months this forest is alight with fireflies. I bet it could rival your rivers of gold any evening.”

            “I doubt that,” Thorin says, but smiles at the thought. “Still, I would like to see it.”

            “Will you even be here come winter, let alone summer?”

            He won’t, and yet it’s easier not to say so. Besides, Bo already seems to know. Finally they come to the edge of the wood, back out into dew-damp fields. In the distance Thorin can hear the murmur of a river. “We’ve just passed through Waymeet,” Bo says. “Or at least the outskirts of it. Hobbiton is across The Water.”

            “Is that where your home is?” Thorin asks. “Hobbiton?”

            “It is, when I call it home,” Bo says.

            “What do you mean?”

            “You keep your secrets, and I’ll keep mine,” Bo says, instead of answering.

            Thorin has lost track of how long they’ve been walking. In the east, the sky is growing lighter; either his eyes are playing a trick on him, or the hour has grown much later than he thought. Mist is rising from the river ahead, just over a grassy knoll. At Thorin’s side, Bo stiffens and stops short, his fingers cold against Thorin’s own.

            “Something wrong?” Thorin asks, turning to look at him. Bo doesn’t answer. He is staring out into the distance instead, unmoving, unblinking. Something is wrong; his face looks _wrong_. Thorin’s breath catches in his throat. “Bo?” he asks again.

            Bo breathes out, finally, a long, slow shudder. “Damn,” he says, very quietly, and then he’s dropped Thorin’s hand; he’s taken off across the grass, running for the water. He’s gone.

            “Wait!” Thorin calls after him, but it’s useless. By the time he forces his tired legs into motion, Bo has disappeared, and even his footprints are just soft indents in the wet grass, too hard to follow. The mist curls round about Thorin, and the sound of distant running water fills his ears. He is entirely alone.


	2. Chapter 2

Bilbo comes back to himself halfway across The Water, the wooden slats of the bridge slick beneath his feet. He is running and he doesn’t know why, a stitch in his side and his vision still blurred from the switch. He can tell that he’s upset and yet he has no idea what he might be upset about. Wiping a hand across his eyes furiously, Bilbo forces his feet to slow. He stops at the other side of the bridge and hangs on the post of the railing, takes a deep breath. It’s night, so late it must be nearly dawn, a long, long walk from Michel Delving. He is alone.

            Small mercies, Bilbo thinks, and starts for home, still walking too quickly but unable to slow down. He can’t quite keep from glancing over his shoulder the whole way back to Bag End. No one appears, save for one of the local dogs. It keeps pace with him for a bit before turning back to its post, no doubt guarding some farmer’s flock of hens. By the time Bilbo unlatches his front gate the sky is tinged with light, faint pink-red against the clouds, and Bilbo can hear his father saying, “Red at morn, take warn.” He latches the gate behind him, and bolts his front door shut before sinking down against it. Then he rises and draws the curtains across all his windows, and shuts himself in one of the back bedrooms, built deep under the hill. As the sun comes over the horizon, Bilbo paces and frets, hands in tight fists at his sides. Daybreak seems to take far longer than it should. At last, to the soft rumble of the Shire waking up, the noises of doors opening and voices calling out filtering through the walls of Bag End, Bilbo collapses into exhausted, fitful sleep.

            The things he dreams about happened long ago, if they happened at all. With his mind still caught up in the switch—that’s the best way he’s found to refer to it, even after all these years, and it’s scarcely adequate—Bilbo can never quite tell what’s real. It’s gotten him into trouble more than once. It’s the reason Bag End alone, out of all the smials in Hobbiton, has locks on its doors. Tossing beneath the second-best quilts on the spare bed, Bilbo wrestles with memories.

            He came of age just three years before his father died; Bungo’s health had already been failing when they gathered beneath the Party Tree. It was September then, early enough that autumn still felt like summer. Bilbo remembers dancing with a crown of leaves on his head, ribbons wound around the tree, the rich vermillion of his mother’s skirts. In his dream, he watches himself as if from behind a windowpane; there is no sound, no smell, just a sour taste to the air. He sees himself laughing. His eyes are the wrong colour; they are far, far too dark for his face. He has never had eyes that colour. Has he? His father is talking to him, in the dream. The movements of his mouth aren’t matching up with the words, and the words themselves are incomprehensible, a language he never learned, or has forgotten, or imagined to exist.

            “What? What?” Bilbo can hear himself asking, leaning close to his father, watching the pair of them from a distance, being in two places at once. When he looks down at his hands—his own hands—they are see-through, and shaking. Everything is as bad as it was the first time.

            He is losing track of himself.

            “Everything has an end.” Bungo looks at his son, places his hands on Bilbo’s shoulders. “Just remember that, and you’ll be all right.”

            The night is full of stars, bright over The Water. Someone is calling Bilbo’s name; he thinks it might be his mother. His father is talking again but he cannot follow. It’s almost, but not quite, like being drunk. He wants to say something, to reassure his father, who looks so distraught that something in Bilbo’s heart cracks, and will keep cracking. It starts to rain. But that’s not right; it never rained at his coming-of-age party. They were out in the fields all night until dawn, and there was endless music. All Bilbo can hear now is the rush of air in his own ears, the shaky sound of his own breath. It’s dark. There are no more stars. He looks back to where he had been standing, moments ago, and finds himself gone.

            Waking up is like coming up from the depths, gasping. Bilbo leans forward, drops his head over his knees, wraps his hands around the back of his neck. His fingers are cold. There’s a draft coming in from the window. He’s had this dream before, and every time he has it, it goes a little bit farther. This time his father actually spoke to him. That’s never happened before. Not that his words were any great revelation; Bilbo knows that everything comes to an end. What he wants, specifically, to come to an end is this business of losing himself, piece by piece, every day. As he hauls the shutters closed more firmly, trying to block out the draft, he sees the sun low in the sky. It must be past tea-time already; he’s slept for hours and hardly feels rested at all.

            “I hate you,” Bilbo repeats, rubbing his neck, stretching his arms. Shrugging off the feeling of someone else’s hands against his skin, he heads for the kitchen. There at his table, calmly drinking tea from Bilbo’s mother’s best china, is someone he has not seen in six years and did not expect for at least another six. “Gandalf,” Bilbo says, and slides into the chair opposite him. “What on earth are you doing here?”

            “You’re looking well,” Gandalf says, rather than answer.

            Bilbo frowns. He’s definitely not looking well. Gandalf smiles indulgently as Bilbo stands and puts the kettle back on, to make another cup of tea.

            “I was passing through,” Gandalf continues. “Thought I’d just drop in. Nothing much has changed here.”

            “No, it hasn’t. Did you really expect it to?”

            “Hmmm. I thought it might. A great deal is changing beyond your borders, you know.”

            “I don’t know,” Bilbo says, taking the kettle off the hob, “and I’m not sure I care to.”

            “Oh, but you should.”

            “The Shire has stayed the same for a hundred years. Why should it change now? We keep to our affairs, and let others mind theirs.”

            “I fear that the day is coming when you may not be able to simply close your doors against the rest of the world, Bilbo Baggins.” Gandalf gives him a long, considering look over his tea, then proceeds to stuff an entire biscuit in his mouth. Bilbo sighs. “You’re _not_ well, are you?” the wizard asks. “What are you not telling me?”

            “You mean you don’t know already? You usually do.”

            “Tell me.”

            Bilbo sighs again, and wraps his fingers—still cold—around his teacup. “I can’t remember things,” he says. “It’s . . . difficult to put into words. I go through my days with no knowledge of my nights.”

            “Do you sleep so deeply, then, that you do not dream, not even in flashes?”

            “No, that’s not it. I mean, I do dream, sometimes. But I think it’s more that I don’t sleep.”

            “You don’t sleep?”

            “I don’t remember sleeping.” Bilbo shakes his head. “This isn’t coming out right. It sounds ridiculous. I’m just tired, Gandalf.”

            Old man looks at young with worry in his eyes. Gandalf coughs and clears his throat, rearranges his hands around his teacup. It appears far too small for him, the effect amusing enough that Bilbo almost laughs. “I wish you’d told me sooner,” Gandalf says, emphatically not laughing. “When did all this start?”

            “Years . . . years and years ago.”

            “When you came of age.”

            “Yes, I suppose.”

            “Hmmm. And your parents never said anything?”

            “Dad tried to, I think.” Bilbo’s brow creases as he frowns, looking down into his tea. “For the longest time I had no memory of what he said. Last night, or this morning, his words came back to me in a dream, but I’m not sure they’re the right words.”

            “What did he say?”     

            “He told me that everything has an end, and that I should be sure to remember that. He was saying something else, too, but I couldn’t understand him.”

            “Hmmm,” Gandalf says again.

            “Now you’re not telling _me_ something.”         

            “Your mother, she never said anything either?”

            “If she did, I’ve forgotten. Gandalf, what is this about?”

            “Your mother should have been the one to tell you. I think she would have, if she knew. But why wouldn’t she?” Gandalf draws his pipe out from a fold in his robes and lights it, puffs a few times and chews at the mouthpiece. “I can only guess that she never experienced the same thing. They say it does skip a generation, or several. I never imagined it would happen to you, after how quiet it all has been. But perhaps it is no coincidence, happening now, when so much else is astir. I wish I could stay and help you, Bilbo, but I’m afraid I have much more dire troubles than a familial quirk.”         

            “A quirk?” Bilbo asks.

            “You should talk to the Old Took,” Gandalf tells him. “He’ll be able to explain it better than I can.”

            “Why can’t you just tell me? You’re here now.”

            “Yes, and already I’ve stayed too long. Don’t fret, Bilbo. It will be all right. I’ll stop in again on my way back. With luck, we’ll have more time to talk then.”

            “You’re joking. You’re really just going to leave now? Gandalf, I have more questions than answers!”

            “Don’t we all,” Gandalf says, rising. He is still puffing from his pipe. “I wish I could help you, Bilbo, but this is something you’re going to have to come to understand on your own.”

            “Why?”

            “Tradition.”

            “Hang tradition! I’ve gotten nowhere on my own.”

            “Go and talk to Gerontious,” Gandalf says again. “And now, I must go. I’ll see you again soon, Bilbo.” He’s out the front door before Bilbo can protest again. Running after him, Bilbo catches a glimpse of long grey robes swishing around the bend in the road, and then the tip of a pointed hat just visible over the hedgerow as Gandalf strolls out of Hobbiton, off to who knows where, to do who knows what.

            “Good riddance,” Bilbo mutters, and mostly doesn’t mean it. Still, he locks his front door behind him—no use wondering how Gandalf got in, but none of the other Hobbits can walk through walls or pick locks or do whatever tricks the old man knows—and he goes to his study, worrying his lower lip with his teeth. He should eat breakfast, but lacks even the barest hint of an appetite.

            Gerontious Took, or The Old Took, who is actually Bilbo’s maternal grandfather, lives down in Tuckborough, across the Water and past Waymeet. It’s a long walk to the Great Smials, where the Old Took has his rooms. Bilbo’s been there often enough to know he’s not particularly fond of the place; it’s dark and stuffy, everything already on its way to being preserved, more of a tomb or a museum than a home. When he was younger, his parents would take him to visit his grandfather on feast days, dressed up in his best waistcoat. Bilbo remembers that the bread was always dry, and the stories not half as exciting as his mother’s but still better than most. The Old Took and Gandalf are friends, just as Bilbo’s mother and Gandalf were friends. Being the third in line seems prophetic, somehow, and Bilbo can’t help but wonder if the wizard is more to blame than thank for his advice.

            It’s far too late now to head out. There’s no way he’ll make it before nightfall, and after nightfall it won’t matter. Resigning himself to another few hours of worry, Bilbo sips his tea and tries to keep from glancing over his shoulder. There’s no one there. It only feels like some other set of eyes is watching him, some other set of hands covering his as they turn the pages of a book he’s barely reading. Nearly sunset now. The shadows in the corners of the room grow long, their edges pushing at the circle of candlelight that surrounds the reading desk. Out the west-facing window the skies are, once again, tinged with red.

            There’s a knock on the front door, hesitant but loud. Bilbo all but falls out of his chair, heart beating too-quick against his ribs. He knocks over a candle, spills wax across his desk, and slams the book shut. The knock comes again, sounding distant down the hall. It can’t possibly be Gandalf, who never knocks, nor Hamfast, who would come around to the side door by the garden, and he’s not expecting any other relatives. Doesn’t _want_ any other relatives, certainly. Whoever it is knocks a third time, strong enough to make the door rattle, and Bilbo scrapes his chair back, takes a few tentative steps into the hall. From the front parlour window he can just glimpse his doorstep, dark hair and a cloak, no one he recognises.

            There’s no reason to worry. No trouble comes to the Shire. All of his neighbours have always been pleasant, if a bit distant towards him. Most likely some farmer has lost a sheep and they’re mustering up a search party. Tightening the ties of his dressing gown, Bilbo steps back into the hall and opens his front door. Standing there, hood up against the chill of the evening, is possibly the last thing Bilbo would have suspected: a Dwarf. “Er, hello,” Bilbo says, taken aback. The Dwarf is taller than he is, bulkier, looks imposing, somehow, on the doorstep against the last light of the sun. “Can I help you?” he asks, and the Dwarf frowns at him.

            “You don’t . . .” he says, and then shakes his head. “Bo?”

            “Sorry?”

            “Then, you’re not . . .”

            “I think you might be at the wrong house,” Bilbo says after a moment, and moves to close the door.

            “Wait!” The Dwarf steps forward, blocks the doorway with one booted foot. Bilbo backs up, tense, nervous. “Just wait. I’m not going to hurt you.”

            “I’d like you to leave now. Please.”

            “I’m looking for someone. I was told he lived here.”

            “I’m the only one who lives here.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “Of course I’m sure. Who gave you this address?”

            “A man in your village. Look,” the Dwarf says, reaching into his cloak. Bilbo takes another step back. The heavy boot is still blocking his doorway. “Look, this is the one I’m searching for.” The Dwarf holds out a sketch, creased several times over from being folded up in a pocket. The portrait is a near-perfect likeness of Bilbo, except for something about the eyes. They’re too narrow, too sharp. Too dark. Bilbo takes the sketch in his hands and looks it over, puzzled. “And you say it is not you.”

            “It isn’t. We’ve never met before, you and I.” Bilbo passes the portrait back. He’s glad to be rid of it, though he can’t say why. Looking at it is supremely unsettling. “I promise you, I would remember.”

            “I see,” the Dwarf says, but he’s frowning and still standing very close. “My mistake, then. I’ll . . . take my leave.”

            Bilbo watches him turn and go, and can’t help but call out after him, “You never gave me your name.”

            “Thorin Oakenshield, at your service.”

            “Bilbo Baggins, at yours and your family’s.” The reply is automatic, manners and heritage forcing the words past his lips before he realises that he’s doing a very poor job of not getting involved. “Listen,” he says, swallowing tightly against his better judgement, “now’s not a good time. What about tomorrow? Come tomorrow. For tea.”

            “For tea,” Thorin repeats.

            “Yes. Goodnight.” Bilbo closes his door finally and makes a point of not looking out the window to watch the Dwarf leave. “Oh, what are you doing?” he mutters, eyes shut. “Why would you ask him to come back?”

            The thing is, of course, that Bilbo can’t just look at a portrait of not-quite-himself and then shut the door and forget about it, not with everything else that’s been happening to him, is still happening to him. But now is not at all a good time. The sun has dropped below the horizon line; the first sliver of a moon is growing brighter and brighter with the coming darkness. Bilbo can’t feel his hands, though when he looks at them he sees that they are shaking.

 

\----

 

Thorin walks away from Bag End in a cloud, darkening. He’d gone back to the inn last night, sat up for an hour sketching by candlelight, putting a face from memory to paper if only to prove to himself that he had seen it. Portraiture has never been his talent but he’s good with his hands, good with details, and the Hobbit’s face was so clear in his mind that he was seeing it every time he closed his eyes. It won’t do. He’s not meant to be thinking of another like this, not yet, not when there is still so much work to be done, and that other a man and not even a Dwarf, besides. His father would be furious.

            But then, Thrain’s not here. The Shire is wide and green and peaceful, none of the things his home has ever been, and there is so little here that could possibly be mistaken for Dwarvish. It is a more comfortable place than the towns of Men, but that does not mean it is, on its own, comfortable. Drawing the hood of his cloak up over his head, Thorin makes his way through narrow lanes, back to the center of Hobbiton. He’s taken a room at the Green Dragon, a nice enough place if small and rowdy. Apparently Bo hadn’t been joking when he said that tabletop dancing was tame behaviour among Hobbits. Thorin steps inside to a raucous chorus of some song he’s never heard before but everyone else seems to know. A young Hobbit, barely as high as Thorin’s chin, spills ale over his boots as he passes by. It’s not worth the words it would take to yell at him so Thorin lets it go. Using the breadth of his shoulders, it isn’t hard to push his way through the main room. The hall is much quieter, and his room down at the end quieter still. The bed is too short but Thorin lies down anyway, tucks his cloak around himself against the chill of the night. He can only afford a few days more, both in cost and time, before he needs to move on.

            It’s been a long day of going door to door, faking politeness to strangers. Hobbits in general are friendly folk, and seem to know everyone in the entire Shire. He made no progress with the name Bo Took, except to learn that the Tooks live in Tuckborough—he thinks they might have given a bit of effort to the name—and are thought of as a little bit odd by almost everyone, and very odd indeed by quite a few. The sketch gave him better results, a name and address: Bilbo Baggins, of Bag End. Apparently a well-respected Hobbit from an even more respected family, though Thorin received more than one curious look that suggested the Bagginses were not altogether proper. Thinking back on it now, Thorin’s surprised no one was more blunt in their questioning. “A personal matter,” he’d said, when they had asked him why he was looking for Bilbo. Only, he’s not looking for Bilbo; he’s looking for Bo Took. They could be brothers, they look so alike, but Thorin prides himself on his judgement of character and he knows that the man he spoke with today is not the same one he followed home the other night. Can’t be the same one.

            “Come for tea,” Bilbo had said, and now Thorin has to. Perhaps it really is so simple that they’re estranged brothers. Hadn’t Bo said that he didn’t get along with his family? If relations are strained, that would explain why Bilbo hadn’t wanted to discuss things in the doorway for all to hear. Thorin turns over in bed, puts his back to the wall. His sword is at an easy reach, his shield propped up against the bed-frame. It’s habit now, as much as suspicion, and though he sleeps quietly he does not sleep well.

            Morning dawns in the Shire to chaos, or what passes for it amongst Hobbits. Someone has, apparently, broken into Bag End, torn its front door right off its hinges and cast it aside, where it then rolled down the Hill and crushed the flower beds. Bilbo is nowhere to be found. Thorin comes out of the Green Dragon to shocked voices and Hobbits milling about, wide-eyed, nervous. They don’t have much experience with violence in the Shire, and certainly aren’t used to waking up to find one of their most historic homes torn apart in the night. It brings back more memories than Thorin is comfortable with. He has to stop and catch himself against a low stone wall when he looks at the door, cracked in two and lying in the bottom of a garden, and at the gaping black hole where it used to stand. Too many memories, and none of them good. Anger, fresh and quick, flares up—tempered with concern for the man he spoke to only hours ago, who looks so like someone he wants to speak to again.

            “What happened here?” Thorin grouses, tightening his sword belt as he walks over to the cluster of Hobbits speaking in whispers. They swing around and eye him with open hostility, looking from his broad shoulders to the sword at his hip, the axe across his back. Looking at him like they’re afraid. Thorin steps back, drops his stance, raises his hands. “I just want to help,” he says, and glances surreptitiously over his shoulder for an escape route. Very quickly, the Hobbits have him surrounded. He swallows, and clears his throat. “My name is Thorin Oakenshield. I’m a blacksmith. I’ve been working for your miller, Sandyman. I mean you no harm.”

            “So you say,” one of the Hobbits puffs, “but how can we believe you, a stranger, when strange things are afoot?”

            “I swear it,” Thorin says. “I know the man who lives there,” he gestures with his chin towards Bag End, and if it is a lie it is one born of good intentions, “and I’d like to know that he’s all right.”

            “No one’s seen him since last night,” another Hobbit says, and is shushed by her companions.

            “Don’t tell him that!”

            “What’s the harm? He didn’t do it, or he wouldn’t still be here.” A Hobbit girl crosses her arms and faces the crowd. “And I, for one, think we could use some help around here from someone who knows how to do more than smoke a pipe and drink an ale.”

            “Thank you,” Thorin says to her, while the crowd grumbles.

            “I’m Prim Brandybuck,” she says. “Bilbo’s my cousin. He’s always getting into trouble so it’s no surprise that he’s taken up with Dwarves. No offense meant to you, of course. You seem perfectly nice.”

            “Er, none taken.”

            “Just that we’ve been having strange folk at our borders for some time now, even if no one wants to admit it, and you’re the first to actually come and talk with us. So naturally, you have our attention.”

            “Your suspicion, you mean,” Thorin says wryly.

            “Yes, well, wouldn’t you be suspicious?” Prim asks. “Oh, go on, then,” she waves at the crowd. “Make yourselves useful. Look for Bilbo, instead of standing around waiting for him to spring out of the ground!” Chastised, the crowd disperses, though they favour Thorin with backwards glances and seem hesitant to leave Prim on her own with him.

            “You don’t know what happened?” Thorin asks her.

            “No. I was coming by this morning to drop off some pastries. Went to knock on the door—he always keeps it locked—and found that there was no door. No lock. I went over to Hamfast’s, across the way, but he hadn’t seen or heard anything, which is the strangest part. Heavy door like that, you’d think someone would hear it crash. Hobbits have sharp ears, you know. No sooner was I asking Hamfast about it than the neighbours heard, and raised the alarm, and then . . . well, you saw. Whole neighbourhood turned out to stare.”

            “Do you have any idea where he . . . where Bilbo might have gone?” What Thorin really wants to know, of course, is where Bo might have gone, but no one seems to be able to help him with that.

            “I can check the usual places—the Old Forest, Brandywine Bridge, the places he goes to wander or read. But I can tell just from looking at you that you don’t believe he’s just gone for a walk.”

            Thorin doesn’t reply, just studies Prim’s face, trying to read her expression.

            “Which is why I’m still here talking to you,” Prim continues. “Because I don’t believe it either. I’ve known Bilbo since we were very young and he’s always been a bit strange but lately . . . he’s been even stranger. And I’m worried about him. That old wizard was about the other day, and now you come saying you know him, and I’d like to know what’s going on. So talk, Master Dwarf.”

            “Thorin,” he says. “Call me Thorin. What old wizard?”

            “Gandalf the Grey. Most around here only care about his fireworks, but I’ve heard his stories for long enough to know that there’s always a bit of truth to them, and that trouble follows wherever he goes. A real disturber of the peace, that man. Why, do you know him?”

            “I do, as it happens.” Thorin frowns. He hadn’t realised that Gandalf was involved. It’s been years since he’s seen the wizard and he had been glad for it. To have him come back now, and apparently connected to whatever is going on with Bo and Bilbo and the broken door, is somehow not surprising but unwelcome all the same.

            “Then you do know something of what’s going on.”

            “No. All I know is that I was meant to have tea with your cousin today, and it’s going to be difficult to do so if he’s not at home.”

            “Do Dwarves like tea?” Prim asks. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

            Thorin smiles, just barely. “Actually, no. It’s far from my first choice of drink.”

            “Then you just like Bilbo.”

            “That’s not—”

            “Why else would you subject yourself to his tea? Which goes on for hours, I can assure you. That man takes food very seriously.”

            “I don’t . . . I’ve only just met him.”

            “When?”

            “Last night,” Thorin admits. The time for secrecy and falsehoods is probably not now, when someone is missing and it seems likely that something foul is afoot.

            “Last night? You liar. You said you knew him.”

            “I know his brother,” Thorin says, going with his best guess.

            “Bilbo doesn’t have any brothers. I would know.” Prim puts her hands on her hips, steps closer. She’s shorter than Thorin, with eyes nearly as blue as Bilbo’s. “What are you on about?”

            “I met him a few nights ago, over in Michel Delving. Bo, his name was.”

            “Why would Bilbo use a fake name?”

            “No, it wasn’t Bilbo. I met your cousin last night and he was not the same man. I had thought they were brothers. Twins, even.” Thorin frowns, and rubs his jaw, feeling his beard still shorn short. “I don’t understand this any more than you do, you know.”

            “Bilbo doesn’t have a brother,” Prim repeats. She looks Thorin over and frowns, and then turns to survey the damage at Bag End. “Well, no use standing around. We may as well think as we work. You’re a blacksmith, aren’t you? You can be in charge of replacing the door. The hinges are torn off.”

            “I can do that,” Thorin agrees, slowly. “Though I think you might need a whole new door.”

            “I’ll see what I can do. And I’ll have my eyes on you,” Prim warns, “so don’t go disappearing. One missing is more than enough to deal with.”

            “Right.” Thorin nods to her, and steps through the gate at the lower end of the front walk. The door is probably not too heavy for him to lift, but he goes to inspect the hinges first. Under the ruse of examining the extent of the damage he lets himself inside, looks around the darkened front hall at a mess of furniture and clothes. A bench has been knocked over, walking sticks in a pile across the doorway, cloaks and waistcoats strewn about. There is a candle on a low chest and Thorin bends to light it, casting a warm glow across the entryway where the morning sun has yet to touch down.

            Thorin has seen plenty of doors torn off their hinges before. What is most unsettling about this one is that it was not ripped away from the outside. No, whoever tore this door down did it from within. The hinges have been ripped out of the walls, mangled but intact, not split apart as they would have been if someone had kicked the door down. Either Bilbo was feeling particularly strong last night, or someone else was inside with him and did not want to be. Bilbo always locks his door, Prim had said, but if so, why wouldn’t he simply unlock it? Let himself, or whoever else, out?

            Thorin doesn’t have any answers. All he can do is solve the problem in front of him. He collects the hinges and their pins in one pocket and sets about straightening the hall. He can’t work if he’s continually tripping over walking sticks and getting tangled up in cloth. A little further in, the kitchen is in a similar state of disarray, plates left half-emptied on the table, toast crumbs, ash piled high in the brick fireplace, a pitcher of soured milk on the counter. Thorin sighs, and sets to cleaning up. It’s not his problem, not his house and he hardly knows Bilbo at all, but there’s no sense in leaving the mess for someone else to clean up. He doesn’t know his way around the Shire, wouldn’t have the first clue as to where to look for the missing Hobbit. What he can do is pour the soured milk out in the garden and get up to his elbows in soap suds washing the pile of dishes, scrubbing plates clean and wiping counter tops. Once he starts, it’s methodical and mindless, moving his hands in familiar motions. Living with Dís and the boys he does more than his share of picking up after people—not that his sister is untidy, but his nephews more than compensate for it, and he tries to give Dís a break when he can. The King-in-Exile, indeed, Thorin thinks grimly as he dries off silverware and hunts around the cupboards for the proper homes of various dishes; Some King you are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens . . . kind of.
> 
> So in an ideal world, I'll have a chapter for you all every 10 days or thereabouts. The story's all planned out; I've just been buried in final papers (writing & grading), so finding the time to sit down and string bullet points into sentences has been a challenge. I'm optimistic about the upcoming weeks.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and many thanks to those of you who've left kudos or comments. It's wonderful to have your support. **Please also give your support to my wonderful artist, thehobbitpanda:** [ cover art](http://thehobbitpanda.tumblr.com/post/105386197896/my-other-hobbitreversebang-prompt-was-a-sort-of), [ bitter smithing](http://thehobbitpanda.tumblr.com/post/105419591956/as-he-hammers-out-the-steel-from-the-old-pipe), and [Thorin & Bilbo's first encounter](http://thehobbitpanda.tumblr.com/post/106423729231/standing-there-hood-up-against-the-chill-of-the). She's been great to work alongside and has more art coming, and it would be fantastic if you'd all take a moment and like the pieces on tumblr. Thank you!
> 
> Happy Christmas Eve!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> . . . I've done a bit of retconning in regards to the dates, because I don't know why I thought it would be autumn. It's not. It's May. A few details in earlier chapters have been changed to reflect this. The seasons may now carry on as they should. Sorry for the confusion.

When Prim returns, some hours later, with no news of Bilbo and the sharp pinch of worry around her mouth, she finds Bag End neat and orderly, smelling of lemon and soap, everything tucked away in perhaps not its proper place but at least a place where it fits. Thorin is sitting on the front step, hammering out the hinge pins until they’re straight again. Prim leans in, looks over his shoulder, and says, “You didn’t have to do that.”

            Thorin shrugs, and doesn’t look up.

            “No, I mean it. I saw what state the place was in. I would have cleaned it up.”

            “You had other things to do,” Thorin says, and adds, truthfully—a little bitterly—“I didn’t.”

            “Well, thank you.”

            “You didn’t find him, then?”

            “No, but we’re still looking. The Shire is larger than it seems, you know. Look, it’s nearly noon. Why don’t you take a break, and we’ll see what’s in Bilbo’s pantry for luncheon?”

            “There’s nothing in his pantry,” Thorin says. “I checked. I don’t know what he’s been eating, these past few days, but apart from a few potatoes and a barrel of apples, and your basket of pastries, there’s no food in the place. What was left about the kitchen was days old, or weeks. Some of it untouched.”

            Prim’s face falls. “I didn’t know he wasn’t eating,” she says. “I should have come to check on him sooner.”

            “He looked fine last night. And we were going to have tea this afternoon.”

            “Hobbits eat at least six meals a day. One afternoon tea is nothing. It’s unheard of. It’s . . . I’m worried. I had no idea it was this bad.” Prim twists the fabric of her skirt in her hands, and then smoothes it out. “Right. There’s one last place I have to check.”

            “I’m coming with you,” Thorin says, standing.

            “That’s not—”

            “I’m coming.”

            “Hmm.”

            Thorin stares her down, not arguing, not directly, but argumentative all the same.

            “Fine, but keep quiet about it.” Leading the way, Prim takes them around the back side of Bag End, past the windows cut into the gentle slope of the hillside. “This is Bindbole Wood,” Prim tells Thorin as they leave cleared fields for high, close trees. “Stick close to me. It’s easy to lose your way.”

            “You really think he’s in here?” Thorin asks, ducking under a branch. He still can’t name Bilbo, can’t think of him as the same person as Bo Took.

            “We used to come here as kids. No one really does anymore, so it’s the perfect hideout.”

            “I can see why.” Thorin winces as he pushes through a tangle of branches that leave scratches down the side of his face and arms. Twigs snag in his hair, ruining whatever braids he has left since he last bothered to fix them. He isn’t wearing armour and again wishes for it. When he goes to free his axe, thinking to clear a path, Prim stops him with a hand on his arm.

            “Don’t,” she says. “Not here.”

            “We can hardly get through.”

            “That’s the point of a hideout. Come on, it’s not much farther.”

            It’s easy enough for her, Thorin thinks; she’s smaller, lighter, more agile. She can duck under the lower branches with ease, sure on her bare feet while Thorin smacks his head on things and trips over roots that catch at his boots. Just as he’s feeling he’d rather set the place alight than fight his way through any longer, they come out into a small, low clearing. The forest floor has sunk beneath them; Thorin can hear running water, faintly, not a stream but perhaps a little brook somewhere off to the side. The ground is mossy and the air is still. Even though they’re out of the trees branches still crowd the sky overhead, arcing up around them on all sides. In the center of the clearing is a tree larger than any Thorin’s ever seen, though the ground it stands on is so low that it looks no taller than the rest of the forest. Part of the way up the trunk there’s a hole, wide and dark.

            “Stay here,” Prim says, and picks her way forward to the tree, hardly making a sound. Thorin looks around, listening, waiting. When Prim reaches the tree she pushes herself up on tip-toe, grabs the edge of the hole, and hauls herself inside the trunk. There’s a muffled thump as she—presumably—falls inside, and then a moment of tense silence. “Thorin! Come here!” she shouts, her voice muffled by the wood. Thorin, boots slipping on the mossy ground, runs for the tree. Standing on one of the roots, he can look down into the hollowed out trunk. Prim is crouched next to Bilbo, who appears to be asleep. “Help me lift him out,” she says, and hauls Bilbo’s arm across her shoulders, drags him upright. Leaning into the opening, Thorin catches Bilbo’s hands and pulls. The angle is awkward and a strain on his back but Bilbo is surprisingly light. Prim gives a shove from below and Thorin gets an armful of limp Hobbit. He lays Bilbo down at the base of the trunk and drops his arm back inside to help Prim out. Something in the wood shivers, a dry rustling in the otherwise quiet afternoon, and though Thorin’s eyes may not be as keen as a Hobbit’s he turns to look into the dark trees, breath caught in his throat.

            “We should get him out of here,” he says, as soon as Prim’s found her feet.

            “I thought that’s what we were doing.” And then Prim looks around, and her face falls, and she says, “Right, let’s be quick about it. You take his legs.”

            Thorin bends and lifts Bilbo entirely, putting the Hobbit over his shoulders, legs on the left and arms on the right. He gets hold of Bilbo’s right hand across his chest, wraps his other arm around Bilbo’s legs, and straightens up. “I’ve got him. You lead,” Thorin tells Prim. She looks him over, one eyebrow raised. Doubtful. “It’s faster this way,” Thorin says. “Go.”

            The forest around them seems closer than before, its branches sharper, paths darker. Prim loses her footing and catches her dress on brambles; the cloth tears before she can pull free. Thorin’s chest is tight, as if he can’t get enough air. Slung across his shoulders, Bilbo is barely breathing. “Hurry up,” Thorin rasps.

            “I’m trying,” Prim snaps back, sidling around a tree that’s blocking their way. It takes them longer to get out than it did to get in and Thorin tries to shake off the feeling that they’re growing in circles. This forest is practically in Bilbo’s backyard; he and Prim used to play in it when they were young. They can’t be lost. It’s just a trick of the light. “Almost there, now,” Prim says. “Watch your step.”

            Through a gap in the leaves, Thorin can see blue sky, fence posts. Prim disappears up ahead. Thorin emerges into sunlight blinded and sinks to his knees as soon as they’re free of the trees. The air is crisp, the wind touched with damp, and he feels suddenly foolish for his moment of near-panic. For someone who has spent so much time in the dark places of the world, he should hardly fear a forest. It’s not as if the forest can collapse in on him, or any number of things that a mountain can do when things go wrong.

            “You all right?” Prim asks. “I can carry him for a bit, or fetch someone to help.”

            “I’m fine.” Thorin stands up again, resettles Bilbo on his shoulders. “Let’s get him inside.”

            They lay Bilbo down on his bed—freshly straightened by Thorin, along with the rest of the rooms—and crack the window open. While Prim sets about making tea in the kitchen, Thorin sits in a chair beside the bed and watches the breeze play with Bilbo’s curls, studies the face of a man he’s not sure he knows. “What was that place?” Thorin asks Prim when she returns. “That tree.”

            “I told you. Bindbole Wood.”

            “What’s wrong with it?”

            “There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just an old wood.”

            “And he’s just sleeping, is he?” Thorin asks, gesturing towards Bilbo. Prim has the good grace to look caught in a lie. With a sigh, she settles herself at the foot of the bed.

            “I don’t know what’s wrong with Bilbo. But Bindbole Wood really is just old, I swear. Most avoid it because there’s nothing in there, just a lot of trees, and you saw how difficult it is to walk. Hobbits don’t like dark spaces, for all that we live in holes in the ground. We like light, air, open fields. Bilbo and I took to exploring there whenever we wanted to get away from it all. We found that tree years ago. We used to have tea parties inside.” Prim puts her hand over Bilbo’s ankle. “His parents never minded but mine would shout if they knew I’d been so we kept it secret. It’s just suspicion, nothing more.”

            “That is not what your face said in that clearing.”

            “I was worried,” Prim says. “And hungry. We never did have luncheon.”

            Thorin sighs. What had Bo said to him, the other night, about keeping secrets? It must run in the family. “Fine, then. Go and eat. Leave me that tea. I’ll see if I can wake him.”

            “Sorry, but even though you’ve just carried him out on your back, I’m not leaving you alone with my cousin. I hardly know you, or what you want from him.” Prim stands, walks to the other side of the bed. “Bilbo?” she asks, and shakes him gently. “Wake up, Bilbo.”

            “Does your village have a healer?” Thorin asks.

            “Not quite. Bilbo, come on, wake up.” Prim shakes him a little harder, and props a pillow behind his head. “He probably just got tired, or hit his head, or . . .”

            Thorin is watching when Bilbo opens his eyes. It’s brief, so quick he might have imagined it, but there’s a moment when those eyes are liquid-dark and Thorin could swear he’s looking at Bo. Then the Hobbit blinks, and groans, and once again it’s Bilbo lying there, ashen-faced, pushing Prim’s hands away. “Stop shaking me,” he grumbles. “I’m going to be sick.”

            “Here,” Thorin says, and offers his arm, thinking to help Bilbo to the sink. Bilbo leans forward, starts to rise, and throws up over Thorin’s boots. “Or not,” Thorin sighs.

            “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Bilbo is saying, his eyes watering as he wipes at his mouth with his sleeve.

            “It’s all right, ssssh, you’re fine. Go and get some towels, would you? And water?” Prim rubs Bilbo’s back, her hands soothing and steady. “Thorin,” she says, “towels?”

            “Hang on.” Thorin grimaces as he sits and unlaces his boots. He leaves them on the floor and heads off in his socks, disgruntled. Half of him means to leave Bag End entirely, leave Bilbo to Prim’s care and write the whole thing off as a mistake. He surprises even himself when he goes back to the bedroom, some towels over one shoulder, a basin of water in his hands. Prim takes a towel and begins to mop up the floor. Thorin dips another towel into the basin and holds it out for Bilbo, who takes it and wipes his mouth and hands.

            “Sorry,” Bilbo says again.

            “It’s fine,” Thorin tells him, though it’s really not. His boots have seen worse, sure, but not for a long time, and then he had other pairs. These are the only ones he has. They’re going to be a pain to clean.

            “Not much of an introduction.” Bilbo reaches up and pulls another towel off Thorin’s shoulders, wets it and drapes it across the back of his neck.

            “Introduction?” Prim asks, looking up from the floor. “You two met yesterday. Or were you lying to me about that, too?” she asks Thorin.

            “I didn’t lie to you!” Thorin snaps. Bilbo winces at the noise. Quieter, Thorin continues, “We did meet last night. I’m sure he’s just . . . ill. Or forgetful.”

            “Bilbo, would you give us a minute?” Prim grabs Thorin by the arm and pushes him out of the bedroom. After closing the door behind them she rounds on him, small and purposeful and earnest. “I need you to be honest with me. You know more than you’re letting on and I don’t have any answers of my own, so I need yours. Now.”

            “I don’t have any answers.”

            “Liar.”

            “I don’t. And you know more as well.” Thorin stares her down. “Whatever’s going on in this place . . .”

            “Is none of your concern,” Prim replies. “Now why don’t you tell me who you really are?”

             “I did tell you. I’ve taken on work as a blacksmith. Ask—”

            “I don’t care about whatever you’ve done for the miller. I care about what you’re doing to my cousin.”

            “. . . I’m not doing anything to him.”

            “Oh no?”

            “No.”

            They face off in the hall, both with their arms crossed, neither willing to be the first to break the silence. Thorin glances down at his feet, uncomfortable without his boots. Prim has leaves in her hair, hints of Bindbole Wood. Their standoff is unbroken until Bilbo opens the door behind them, causing them both to jump. “If you’re finished talking about me,” Bilbo grouses, “I have questions of my own.”

            “And if we’re not finished?” Prim asks him.

            “Well, then . . . It’s my house. We’re civilised folk. Let’s take this into the sitting room and talk about it like adults. Er, after I get a clean shirt, that is.” Bilbo retreats back into the bedroom, leaving Prim and Thorin to stare each other down. At last Prim huffs and shakes her head, goes off to the kitchen. Thorin loiters by the bedroom door, catches a glimpse of Bilbo undressing—stomach, bare arms, tousled hair—before tearing himself away and stomping into the sitting room where Prim’s laid out tea and her pastries.

            Thorin watches Bilbo eat; more precisely, he watches Bilbo pick apart the pastry piece by piece rather than eat it, and tries to square it with the Hobbit who devoured everything on his plate the other night in Michel Delving. They can’t be the same. Prim puts away at least three pastries and two cups of tea before saying anything more, while Thorin eats about seven and no tea.

            “So,” Bilbo says, clearing his throat. “What are you doing here?”

            “What do you remember?” Thorin asks, before Prim can answer.

            Bilbo frowns. “Can we start . . . elsewhere?” The thing is, he doesn’t remember anything, beyond a knock at his door last night. He supposes it must have been Thorin, though what they talked about he couldn’t say. Then he supposes he must have fallen asleep, and had some sort of nightmare. None of this explains why Prim’s got leaves in her hair and Thorin’s face is scratched, or why they both smell so strongly of the earth, or why Bilbo feels as if he’s run halfway across the Shire in his sleep. There is definitely something wrong with him. “Please?”

            “Why aren’t you eating?” Prim asks.

            “Not hungry,” Bilbo says, and then looks down at the mess of crumbs he’s made and winces. The table is startlingly clean, and he’s gone and ruined it.

            “Bilbo.”

            “What, Prim? I’ve just emptied my stomach on our guest’s shoes. I’m not really feeling up to pastries at the moment, thank you.”

            “Your pantry’s practically empty,” Prim says.

            “Is it?” Bilbo responds, mildly. “I meant to go to the market today. I’ll fill it again.” How had he let it get empty? Didn’t he buy groceries just the other day? Bilbo rubs at his temples, closes his eyes.

            “Fill it, and let it rot,” Thorin says, his voice rough against the silence in the room. “Do you remember where you were two nights ago?”

            Bilbo is quiet. “Home,” he says after a while. “Asleep.”

            “Do you have a brother?”

            “No.” Bilbo shakes his head. “No, why on earth would you ask that?”

            “Have you heard the name Bo Took before?” Thorin presses.

            “I know the Tooks, of course. My cousins. But there’s no one called Bo.” Bilbo turns to Prim. “Are you hearing this?” he asks. “What do you make of it?”

            “I know you don’t have a brother,” Prim says, “or any cousin called Bo. But this one’s convinced you do. Has a sketch and everything. Show him, Thorin.”

            Thorin reaches into his pocket for the portrait and comes up empty. It’s not in his tunic, or his cloak. “It’s gone,” he says, more to himself than to the other two. “But how . . .?”

            “We found you in Bindbole Wood,” Prim tells Bilbo, with a significant look. “In that old tree.”

            Bilbo bites his lip and turns away. “I’m tired,” he says, his voice gone cold. “I’d like you to leave now.”

            “But—”

            “Now,” Bilbo repeats. “Please, and thank you.”

            “I’m not leaving.” Prim stands up, hands on her hips. “Not until I know you’re all right.”

            “I’m fine.”

            “You are not.”

            “Prim, please? We’ll talk tomorrow. I just want to rest.” Bilbo gives her his best beseeching eyes and, predictably, she caves.

            “Fine, but I’m coming back first thing, and you are going to eat breakfast. A proper breakfast.”

            “Wonderful,” Bilbo tells her. “First thing. Yes.”

            “Come on, then,” Prim says, inclining her head towards Thorin. “You and I are going to have a talk.”

            Bilbo watches them go from his kitchen windows. Only when they’re down the path and safely out of sight does he pour the remainder of his tea down the sink and retreat to his bedroom. He still doesn’t have a front door, which is the main source of his worries. He could barricade himself in the back study, he supposes, but what’s the point if he can, apparently, get out anyway? “Really, I hate you,” he says to the empty room, to the mirror over his dressing table. He’s not an idiot; he knows there’s something going on that he doesn’t understand. Leaning down, supporting himself on outstretched hands, Bilbo studies his own face in the mirror and tries to remember. Yesterday. Last night. This morning. Time has never been this confused for him before.

            He’d been going to visit the Old Took. At least, that’s what he’d planned to do. Apparently he’d ended up in the Wood instead, hiding out in the hollow tree. Apparently, he’s also got a cousin or a brother or a stranger called Bo Took who wears his face. Presumably, wears his clothes. “Bo Took,” he says, shaping the words, tasting them. “Is that your name, then? You might have chosen a better one.” Bilbo laughs a little, bitterly, and he’s not sure it’s entirely his own laugh. It’s awful, not knowing your own self. It’s awful and he hates it.

            There are a few daylight hours left that he knows he should go out and take advantage of, but he’s exhausted. What he wants is a bath, and his dressing gown, and to warm his toes by the fire. Bilbo tears his gaze away from the mirror—it’s unsettling, watching and waiting for something to change—and goes out into the hall. He avoids any glimpses of the vacant front doorway, and so doesn’t see Thorin there, silhouetted against the garden gate, standing guard.

 

\----

 

For all that he tells himself there’s no point to it, Thorin can’t bring himself to walk away from Bag End. If anyone asks, he reasons, he’ll tell them he’s watching over the place, since there’s still a gaping hole where the door should be. No one does ask, though, either too intimidated or simply disinterested. Prim had dragged Thorin back to the Green Dragon, interrogated him over pints about his intentions and his schemes—her words, not his—and while he had generally been honest with her, he hadn’t been entirely forthcoming. There is something going on here that he doesn’t yet understand. More curious is the fact that, no matter how much he wants to see Bo again, Thorin can’t quite get Bilbo out of his mind either. And that, to him, makes no sense at all. He should only be interested in one or the other. Not both, and especially not both equally, not when he was about to go to bed with Bo and all he knows of Bilbo is the lightness of his body when slung across one’s shoulders. Leaning against the gate, arms crossed over his chest, Thorin ignores the chill of the night wind through his cloak and keeps his eyes trained on the windows of Bag End, watching for lights, shadows, movement. The place is quiet. Perhaps Bilbo has gone to sleep.

            While he waits, Thorin finds himself wishing he had his harp. It would give his cold fingers something to do; the motion of strumming is soothing, repetitive in the same way that striking blows with a hammer is repetitive, just enough variation to focus the mind. It has been a long time since he’s played. His best harp, wrought with gold inlay on the column and neck, a gift from his mother, either burned in Erebor or is now part of a dragon’s hoard. The one he played in the Blue Mountains from time to time—mostly when his nephews were particularly stubborn about going to sleep and Dís despaired of telling them another story—was not essential enough to pack for this journey. It is also precious to him and he feared vagabonds on the road. One dirty, sour Dwarf with a blacksmith’s tools does not offer a threat; give that Dwarf a shining harp of polished walnut and he presents a target. Thorin doesn’t doubt that he could overpower any who might waylay him on the road, but the risk of breaking the harp in the ensuing struggle is too high. He never learned the art of making them; after his mother’s was lost to him, his brother Frerin made the other. Frerin was always good with his hands.

            Blowing on his fingers to warm them, Thorin walks a quick circuit of the garden fence. Across the way, the Hobbit family called Gamgee—friendly neighbours, according to Prim, but Thorin wonders if her notion of “friendly” isn’t a bit too generous—have a light burning, and he can see shadows moving beyond the curtains. Someone’s sheep are bleating to each other, soft and low, down by the Water. The Shire is never completely quiet, even at night. If he walks far enough away from Bag End, Thorin can just hear snatches of conversation from the open windows of the Green Dragon. He thinks of their beds with something close to, but not quite, longing. He does not have the money for another night’s stay, and it’s not a bad night to be outside, as long as you have some shelter from the wind. Back at the garden gate, Thorin hesitates, his hand over the latch, and then opens it and steps inside. He sits in the front doorway, back against the curved frame, tucked out of the wind. With his sword eased from the scabbard, ready at his side, Thorin folds his arms across his chest, crosses his legs, and resumes his guard.

            The lights go out at the Gamgee windows. Thorin sighs, and stretches his neck. It’s quiet inside Bag End. Whether Bilbo’s sleeping or just tucked away in some back room, Thorin does not know. The urge to go inside and check is nearly overwhelming. It’s also incredibly foolish, and Thorin doesn’t understand where it could be coming from, or how to make it go away. He re-crosses his arms, checks that his sword is still within easy reach, and settles again. An hour passes, maybe two. Sometime between the dark of midnight and the first light of dawn, he falls asleep.

            When Thorin wakes, Bilbo is standing over him, tapping his foot as if impatient but looking almost fond, his lips pressed into something that might be a smile. “What are you doing?” he asks. “Sleeping in my doorway. Don’t you have a bed? Someplace more comfortable?”

            Thorin groans and shifts his weight—his neck is stiff, his back sore from pressing against the doorframe. “As it happens,” he says, standing slowly, “I don’t.” With the two of them standing in the doorway it suddenly feels crowded. Thorin takes a step back reflexively, his hand moving out of habit to the sword still loose in its sheath even as his wakening mind registers that Bilbo isn’t a threat. Not that it matters, as before he can complete the movement Thorin steps off the edge of the front step and loses his balance. Bilbo’s hand shoots out and grasps his arm, slight but enough to steady Thorin so that he doesn’t completely fall over.

            “Careful,” Bilbo says, tugging Thorin forward. “Watch yourself. Don’t crush my flower boxes.” Thorin glances over his shoulder, concerned, and Bilbo laughs. “No, no, you’re fine, they’re not in any danger. All right?”

            “Yes.” Thorin brushes Bilbo’s hand off his arm, not harshly but firmly. He is not quite himself when he’s just woken up, particularly not if someone else—someone unknown—has woken him. “I did not mean to sleep in your doorway,” he says, now firmly on both feet, albeit a step below Bilbo. At this level, the Hobbit’s eyes are nearly even with his own.

            “Oh no? Then what were you doing?”

            “Keeping watch.”

            “While asleep.”

            Thorin can feel his face growing warm. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” he very nearly growls. “I was . . . concerned. Regarding your lack of security.” He gestures at the gaping hole that was once Bag End’s front door. “I can fix it for you.”

            “Not before breakfast, surely?”

            “What?”

            “Breakfast. Or do Dwarves not do that?”

            “We do,” Thorin says hesitantly. “Will your cousin be joining us?”

            “Prim’s not really one for mornings.” Bilbo laughs lightly. “She’ll be here for second breakfast, I shouldn’t wonder.”

            “You have two?”

            “Don’t you know anything of Hobbits?”

            “Very little,” Thorin says. “I’ve only really spoken with three.”

            “Well, there’s Prim, and me, so . . . who’s the third?” Bilbo asks, blinking as the early morning light breaks over far-off hills.

            “It’s not important.”

            Bilbo raises an eyebrow, waiting. Thorin doesn’t say anything more, so the Hobbit finally shrugs and sticks his hands in his pocket. “You’d better come in, then,” he says, turning on his heel. “Hard to eat on the doorstep.”

            With some measure of reluctance, Thorin follows Bilbo inside. They eat a strangely companionable breakfast—or at least, Thorin eats and Bilbo picks at his food, managing some toast with honey and little else—and words come easily to them. They don’t talk about yesterday. Instead they talk about gardening. Bilbo may have been joking about the flower boxes, but only because he has a much larger expanse of a garden, winding around Bag End, largely designed to look unkempt though actually painstakingly maintained by Bilbo’s neighbour. “The illusion of wilderness,” Bilbo says, and smiles into his still-full cup of tea.

            “Seems a waste of effort,” Thorin says.

            “Does it?”

            “Yes. Why not just leave it?”

            “It’s . . . something to pass the time, I suppose.”

            “Do you find yourself at a loss often?”

            “Hobbits are simple folk,” Bilbo tells him, which is not a proper answer. “We like simple things.”

            “If by simple you mean pointless . . .” Thorin trails off, suddenly aware that he’s being unforgivably rude to his host. He looks up, chagrined, but Bilbo hasn’t lost his smile.

            “Do you not garden, then, in . . . Where are you from, anyway?”

            Thorin pauses, a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. What answer should he give? East, or West? Truth, or lie? Bilbo watches him, and waits. Thorin swallows. “A mountain very far from here,” he says. “I have not seen it in many years.”

            “And why not?”

            “It was taken from us. From my people. But I have sworn that someday I will return, and take it back.” Someday soon, Thorin thinks, though he doesn’t say it; he can’t even hint at Erebor without renewing his promise to himself.

            “I’m sorry.”

            “Hmm.” Thorin looks down at his plate, and finishes off his eggs.

            “So you’re, what, a wandering blacksmith now? Seems exhausting.”

            Thorin shrugs. “It’s work.”

            “Exhausting work.”

            “There is no alternative.”

            “Isn’t there? You couldn’t, I don’t know, settle down somewhere new? Surely there are plenty of mountains out there.”

            “Not for me. I have only one home, and I will not disgrace it by taking another.”

            “All right, all right, I didn’t mean . . . Sorry. I don’t know very much about Dwarvish culture.” Bilbo reaches across the table to refill Thorin’s cup of tea. “Can’t read any of your books, you know. I can see that I’ve offended you, which wasn’t my intent. I was just curious. Must be a family fault, or something, peculiar to my own. Few Hobbits are curious, really.”

            “You haven’t offended me,” Thorin says. “I apologise as well.”

            “Oh, don’t, let’s not get all formal again. We were having a pleasant conversation. Let’s just . . . talk about something else. You could tell me how you plan to repair my door, for instance. I thought it was broken in two?” Bilbo carefully says “broken” and not “torn,” and “it was” instead of “I did it”; which is, of course, what he’s been suspecting since he woke yesterday to Prim’s concerned face and a Dwarf scowling at the side of his bed, and no memories of where he’d been or what he’d been doing.

            “It was. You’ll need a new door. I can fashion one for you, if you know of a supply of lumber.” Thorin knows that he could simply go out and fell one of the trees behind Bilbo’s house, but something about that wood has made him wary. He’s in no hurry to return, not unless he has to.

            “I don’t, but someone around here must. I’ll go over and ask Hamfast after breakfast. Are you finished?”

            Thorin could eat at least twice as much as he’s already had, to fill the long-standing emptiness of his stomach, but he nods and shoves away from the table, gets to his feet. “Thank you for the food,” he says, and if the words come out stiffly, Bilbo doesn’t seem to notice.

            So Thorin spends the better part of the day hammering out the ironwork design of the strap hinges that played out across the inside of the original door, making straight what had been bent nearly double—bent from the inside outward. It’s easy enough work to re-shape them with a fire and a hammer. Thorin tries very hard not to think about how they were ruined with bare hands. Prim comes by in the late morning and badgers Bilbo into eating some seed cake and more tea, and then watches Thorin none too subtly as he works. He ignores her completely, and after a while she disappears back into Bag End, presumably to pester Bilbo again. Bilbo’s neighbour drops off a cartload of ash planks, brought over from the saw mill down the river, and Thorin spends another hour or so fashioning nails, using what he could pull from the broken door and some scrap metal he’s been carrying around for too long. It’s well into the afternoon by the time he has the door shaped and ready to hang. Bilbo’s been hovering for a while, in and out of Thorin’s workspace, faintly inquisitive but largely absent-minded. He shows up again just as Thorin is hauling the door upright to align it with the hinges, and Thorin enlists Bilbo into holding things straight while he sends the last nails home, securing Bag End’s new door with a few steady swings of his hammer. All that’s left is to paint the outside the same rich green it was before.

            “Thank you,” Bilbo says, as Thorin wipes his brow and studies his handiwork.

            “Not my usual set of skills,” Thorin admits. “But it is strong, and it will hold.” They share a look, neither wanting to speak about what, precisely, it will be holding against.

            “I should hope so. The pride of your reputation rests on it. After all, what Hobbit will commission work from someone who can’t even repair a door?”

            Thorin frowns. Bilbo does have a point. Perhaps he should have just left the door the way it was; but then, what would that say about his skills, to have seen a problem and not fix it? No, he had to intervene. But if this is where it got him, has he set himself up for future troubles?

            As Thorin goes on frowning, Bilbo laughs. “I’m joking again. Don’t you joke? Or do Dwarves not have a sense of humour?”

            “We do,” Thorin says, embarrassed at not recognising the tone of sarcasm in Bilbo’s voice. When Bilbo is sarcastic, he sounds so like Bo, and it’s disarming to hear. “It’s simply different from yours.”

            “Tell us a Dwarvish joke, then.”

            “What?”

            “Come on.” Bilbo reaches out and nudges Thorin’s arm. “I’m listening.”

            “. . . I can’t think of any.”

            “Well. We can come back to that. But don’t think I’ll forget. I have a very good memory,” Bilbo says, and then winces a bit, because that used to be true but these days he’s possibly the least reliable person in all of Hobbiton where memory is concerned. Thorin catches the wince and Bilbo turns his face away. “Do you, er, want to stay for dinner?” Bilbo asks, speaking more to the coat rack than the Dwarf right beside him.

            “I’ll take my leave,” Thorin says, with a shake of his head. “I’ve . . . imposed.” Thorin slings his weapons and tools over his back and tugs the door open. It’s smooth on its hinges. He smiles, in spite of himself, and then realises Bilbo can probably see him and steps out onto the doorstep.

            “Wait.” Bilbo puts a hand to Thorin’s arm. “It’s the least I can do. You’ve been a great help, truly.”

            “Will your cousin be joining us?”

            “Prim left ages ago. She has her own family to worry about.” Bilbo steps out to stand even with Thorin on the doorstep. He has to tilt his head to look into the Dwarf’s eyes. The afternoon sun is low and golden in the sky and he squints against its light. “To be honest,” Bilbo says, “I’m a bit tired of eating alone.” He wonders, as he says it, if it’s true. Hobbits are not, by nature, solitary creatures. Bilbo has become so, partly of his own choosing and partly of a gradual estrangement from the rest of the Shirefolk. Perhaps something as simple as a face across the dinner table will bring back his appetite? It seemed to work for breakfast. It can’t hurt to try. And if he must have company, Bilbo thinks, he finds himself strangely preferring this Dwarf standing before him and looking down with a mix of interest and suspicion. At least Thorin wears his emotions with some subtlety. The same can hardly be said for Prim, much as Bilbo loves her, nor any other of his countless Hobbit relatives. What’s the worst that can happen? That dinner goes awfully? that Thorin leaves and thinks him incurably odd? that they never speak again? None of those are all that terrible.

            “Stay for dinner,” Bilbo says, after their silence has dragged on more than long enough.

            And Thorin looks him over, head to toe and back again, and says, “All right.”

            As Bilbo goes through the pantry, pulling ingredients for dinner—ingredients Prim practically had to force into his arms earlier—he recognises that he’s being fairly foolish. If his worries are true, and whatever it is that has been happening to him does, in fact, happen every night just after sundown, then he’s cutting things awfully close by inviting Thorin to stay for a meal. Weighing a sack of potatoes in one hand, Bilbo has to admit that he’s started to become frightened of being left alone, and having Thorin working in his doorway all afternoon was surprisingly comfortable. Comforting, even. He’s not quite ready to let that go yet, even if it is reckless.

            While a chicken roasts in a cast-iron pan over the fire, Bilbo sets Thorin to work peeling potatoes. “Where on earth has all my silverware gone?” Bilbo mutters, pulling drawer after drawer open, napkins in hand as he tries to set the table. “I swear Prim moves it all around just for fun.”

            Thorin ducks his head and keeps peeling resolutely. He’s not one to let other take the blame for his actions, but he’s also wary of disturbing this tentative peace they seem to have reached, not far removed from furtive conversations behind closed doors. He keeps stealing glances at Bilbo as he works, trying to figure out who this man is, and who he isn’t. He isn’t Bo Took, for one thing; their mannerisms are completely dissimilar, even down to the way they speak. Bilbo’s voice is lighter, more precise; he complains a great deal, and has yet to make any advances of even remotely the same sort as Bo made. While true, that last fact isn’t something Thorin particularly wants to think about, largely because he can’t decide how he feels about it. So he concentrates on his potatoes, slicing them into neat chunks for Bilbo’s stew pot, and he concentrates on the lines of Bilbo’s back, bent over the hearth.

            “How long are you staying in the Shire?” Bilbo asks.

            “Not long.”

            “Another night? Two?”

            Thorin shrugs. “Until there’s no more work to be had here. Perhaps a week.”

            “You work quickly.”

            “No quicker than most.”

            “Hobbits take things at a very slow pace. You’ll figure that out soon enough, if you stay. Pass the potatoes?”

            Thorin hands over the bowl and Bilbo takes it, empties it into the pot. They move easily together in the kitchen. It’s startlingly similar to dodging the boys in Dis’s kitchen in the Blue Mountains, and the familiarity of it all makes Thorin smile. “Something funny?” Bilbo asks, and Thorin shakes his head.

            “Just memories,” he says.

            “I never did thank you,” Bilbo says, “speaking of memories, for getting me out of the wood. Prim told me you were quite the hero.”

            “Your cousin exaggerates.”

            “Still. Thank you. I . . . do remember a bit, now.”

            “Oh? And what do you remember?”

            Bilbo feels his cheeks flush and he speaks into the stew pot, rather than look Thorin in the eye. “You carried me. Rather like a sack of these potatoes.”

            “That’s not—”

            “Please don’t tell me even that memory is false. There are enough gaps in my past days. I’d like to think I’ve recalled at least one thing correctly.” Bilbo smiles up at Thorin, softly, hesitantly, and though his hands are steady on the dishcloth he feels a rush of air past his ears, the faint sensation of falling. Outside Bag End’s round windows, the sun is sinking lower into the lush Shire hills.

            “You’re heavier than potatoes,” Thorin mumbles.

            “Excuse you,” Bilbo says, his voice a bit higher than he means for it to come out. He straightens out the dishcloth, smooths his hands over the embroidery. “I should hope so.”

            He hadn’t really meant for Bilbo to hear, but Thorin lets out a short breath of laughter.

            “Even if I’m . . . not quite the Hobbit I once was.” Bilbo glances down, notes how loosely his shirt hangs, how his suspenders fall flat against his stomach, stretched taut. If this goes any further, he’ll have to get someone to take in his trousers. It’s almost embarrassing. Thorin doesn’t seem to notice, and Bilbo is oddly grateful for the cultural barrier. Being built as he is, Thorin probably doesn’t worry about whether or not he weighs more than a sack of potatoes.

            While they’re sitting at the table, over steaming plates of dinner, Bilbo makes Thorin recount the past day’s events, tries to piece together the time he’s lost. Bindbole Wood never used to frighten him; now he draws the curtains on the back rooms, not wanting to feel as though he’s being watched. Thorin is a solid presence in Bag End’s dining room, his elbows on the table, his knees a touch too high for Shire-made furniture. Thinking “here, now,” over and again to himself, Bilbo watches the clock on the mantelpiece tick and holds on to his surroundings. If the switch comes when he is not alone, what then? What will happen? He has to stay here, now; he cannot let go.

            As it turns out, Thorin makes that decision for him. “It’s late,” the Dwarf says, pushing back from the table and standing silhouetted against the last light in the sky. “I should go. Thank you for dinner.”

            “Oh, no, it’s— My pleasure. Are you sure you . . . What I mean is, there are more than enough rooms here. You’re welcome to stay.”

            “I don’t want to intrude.”

            “Really, it’s no trouble.” Bilbo smiles nervously. He’s tempting fate, he knows; but what will happen? If someone is watching him, will he be able to stay? The thought of Thorin leaving, and of him alone, in the dark, losing hold of himself, frightens him. Never mind that it’s happened before, and will probably happen again. He does not want it to happen right now. “No trouble at all.”

            “I have not experienced such kindness from your neighbours,” Thorin says slowly.

            “Well, no, they’re generally a, how should I say it, a subdued lot. They don’t like to have much to do with outsiders.”

            “And you?”

            “I suppose I’m the odd one out.”

            “Hmm.” Thorin rubs at the back of his neck. Bilbo watches him, head tilted to one side. “If you’re certain . . .”

            “I am.”

            Thorin can’t deny that he’s curious—it’s clear that Bilbo’s hiding something, and yet inviting him in all the same—nor that the promise of a bed he doesn’t have to pay for is one that’s very hard to resist. So he nods his head, murmurs his thanks, and follows Bilbo down Bag End’s winding western hall to a side bedroom. Not, he notes, on the back side of the smial, but rather adjacent to Bilbo’s own rooms.

            Bilbo opens the door and gestures inside, but then his hands fall against his sides and he fidgets. “Right, then,” he says, “the bath is down that hall, and uh, that’s—” Bilbo swallows. “Uh. That’s—” He chokes on the tightness in his throat, lungs burning. It has never felt like this before, has never hit him this hard. Stumbling, Bilbo reaches out a hand to catch himself and grasps not the doorframe but Thorin’s arm, solid, warm.

            “Bilbo? What is it?” Thorin steps closer, gets a hand behind Bilbo’s back in case he falls.

            All Bilbo can do is shake his head, try to warn Thorin off. He can feel the heat rising behind his eyes, the room dropping away from him. No, no, this isn’t what he wanted; this isn’t how it’s supposed to work. “Sorry,” he bites out, gritting his teeth, his hand white-knuckled against Thorin’s sleeve. “Sorry.” For all that he’s gripping so tightly, he feels nothing beneath his fingers, no threadbare cotton, no smooth leather. He cannot even feel his fingers. Numbly, Bilbo slips free, retreats back towards his room shaking his head.

            “Bilbo?” Thorin calls, reaching out for him.

            “Goodnight,” Bilbo says, and it feels like a goodbye.

            Thorin is left standing in the hallway, his arm bruised, staring at a closed door.

 

\----

 

It’s probably a fairly foolish idea, but Thorin spends the night at Bag End all the same. After trying, to no avail, to get a response from Bilbo through the door, and short of breaking it down by force, the next best thing seems to be to simply stay nearby. Just in case. In case of what? Thorin asks himself, and can’t answer. Perhaps he wants to know if there will be another door to hang back on broken hinges come morning. Lying on his back on the spare bed, staring at the curved ceiling, Thorin runs a hand over the tenderness on his forearm, feels the ghost-imprint of Bilbo’s surprisingly strong grip. There is something wrong here, that much is obvious. What’s less apparent are the details, and what anyone is meant to be doing about them. So Thorin shifts on the mattress—softer than he’s had in a long time—and presses an ear against the wall adjoining his room to Bilbo’s, and listens. Hears nothing. No pacing footsteps. Not even quiet breathing.

            Bilbo’s face had been so flushed in the hall, his eyes wide and dark. What if he’s sick? Lacking a proper healer, it’s small wonder Hobbiton hasn’t been overrun by disease. Uncomfortable memories of his own people ill and starving on the road drive Thorin out of bed to pace by the window. The night air is warm and still, as if the season is finally making the turn into a proper summer. Warmer weather means that he can travel farther afield, go for longer without shelter. It means he won’t see the Blue Mountains again for a long time. Won’t see his family, not after he makes one last trip back before the season comes in full.

            His mind now turned far from comforting thoughts, Thorin pulls away from the window and returns to bed. The quiet next door persists, no matter how hard he listens. Eventually, lulled by the softness of a summer night, the crickets out in the garden, Thorin falls asleep.

            The soft creak of the bedroom door wakes him—not Bilbo’s door but his own, followed by light footsteps on the floorboards. Thorin’s hand clenches on instinct around the hilt of the knife beneath his pillow and he tenses his muscles, readies himself to spring up. A cloud crosses the moon and pale light shines in through the window, throwing a line of white over a turned-up nose and wry smirk. “What are you doing here?” Thorin hisses, loosening his grip on the knife but not letting it go.

            Bo Took grins at him and shrugs. He sits on the edge of the bed, entirely casual, as if he hasn’t just broken into someone’s home—never mind if they’re related. “I heard you were around,” he says. “Thought I’d come and . . . say hello.”

            “How did you get in?”

            “Oh, Bilbo’s home isn’t nearly as secure as he thinks it is.”

            “The front door was locked. I know it was.”

            “And you think Hobbit holes have only one door? Shows how much you know.”

            “You’re . . . trespassing.”

            “He won’t mind,” Bo says, waving a hand. “Do you?”

            “What?”

            “Do you mind?” Bo repeats, slowly, shifting closer. “We were . . . interrupted, the other night. Never got to finish what we started.”

            Thorin sits up, moves back against the headboard. The bit of distance that he opens up between them is immediately closed as Bo slides forward. “Where did you run off to that night? Why?”

            “Something came up. You know how it is. But I’m here now.”

            Thorin frowns. Neither of them should be here, and they especially shouldn’t be picking up where they left off here. But Bo’s hands are on his knees, pushing them apart, fingers running up the inseam of Thorin’s leggings. It’s a bit difficult to think of propriety.

            “Come on,” Bo is saying to him. “Let me lead the way. Wasn’t that what we agreed on?”

            Shaking his head, Thorin reaches for clarity. Finds none. Only heat tugging at him from within, urging him closer, further, anywhere other than staying still. All is silent next door. Even the crickets have gone to sleep. Bo looks up at Thorin expectantly, hair falling across his forehead, teeth glinting in the moonlight as he smiles. There’s something fey about him, some kind of wildness Thorin cannot give a name.

            “We’ll have to . . . keep quiet,” Thorin breathes, and tilts his head back, exposes his throat. Offers himself up, consenting.

            “If you’re worried about Bilbo overhearing,” Bo says, running cool fingers along Thorin’s collarbone, “don’t. He’s out for the night.”

            “How do you—aahh—know that?” Thorin shivers.

            “I checked,” Bo says, and shifts his hips forward. “Now, enough about Bilbo. Unless you’d rather it was him in here, with you.”

            “No, I—” Thorin’s protest is cut off, whether because he doesn’t know how to answer or because Bo’s lips are on his, pressing forward. It doesn’t matter. The results are the same. Later, much later, Thorin will have more than enough time to worry about it. For now, all he has, all he can think of, are Bo’s hands on his shoulders, pushing him down into the mattress; Bo’s fingers skating over the bruise on his forearm, the scars along his ribcage; Bo’s legs on either side of his own; Bo’s eyes swallowing up  the brightness of the moon.

            It is not like he imagined.

            Afterwards, leaning back against the headboard, Thorin runs his fingers through the tousled wreck of Bo’s hair and marvels at how it stands on end, smiles at the softness around Bo’s middle as they lie together, close but not touching, too warm in the summer night. Afterwards, Thorin falls asleep.

            When he wakes he is alone, and once again staring at a closed door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So with the holidays & moving back to school, I left you all hanging a bit longer than I would've liked. Sorry about that. Thanks for your patience, and for staying with this story. I really appreciate all the kudos and comments, and please remember to go and give the artist (thehobbitpanda on tumblr, demonatic here on Ao3) your support as well! This is a joint effort. Art: [ cover](http://thehobbitpanda.tumblr.com/post/105386197896/my-other-hobbitreversebang-prompt-was-a-sort-of), [ bitter smithing](http://thehobbitpanda.tumblr.com/post/105419591956/as-he-hammers-out-the-steel-from-the-old-pipe), [ aforementioned awkwardness in doorways](http://thehobbitpanda.tumblr.com/post/106423729231/standing-there-hood-up-against-the-chill-of-the).
> 
> Next time, on "awkward conversations in doorways and halls" (what may as well be this fic's alternate title): Bilbo learns some things, Thorin is conflicted about ~~some~~ lots of things, letters.


	4. Chapter 4

With a groan, Thorin pushes himself out of bed. The morning sun is still just a faint wash of light; Bag End is quiet. Gathering up his clothes, Thorin listens for any movement from the next room over. As he dresses, fingers fumbling with ties they’ve done up so many times before, he starts to worry. He worries too much—Dís has always said so—but finds it impossible not to. Too many things have gone wrong for him, too many things have fallen apart, and he cannot shake the feeling that if only he’d been paying more attention, he could have stopped them. Where did Bo disappear to? More importantly, why does he always disappear? Is it simply something Hobbits do? He’d heard that they were light on their feet, but he’s not a heavy sleeper. Never before has he slept through someone leaving his side. The knife is still under his pillow but Thorin feels foolish taking it now, in the light of day. He puts it in his pack instead, and straightens the rumpled bed sheets. After lacing up his boots, he steps into the hall, closes the bedroom door quietly behind him.

There’s no sign of anyone in the kitchen or either of the pantries. In the sitting room the fire is nothing but a few coals, glowing dimly in the grate. The front door is still closed, locked from the inside, and that’s what gives Thorin the most pause. Bo had to get in somehow, and he had to leave somehow, and Thorin cannot figure it out. There’s more than one door to Bag End, he knows, but the smial is a maze of tunnels and little side rooms. Without opening every single door to see where it leads, there’s little way of knowing. He could open every one, he supposes, but the first few he tries leave him feeling like a burglar, prowling around someone else’s home while they sleep.

Is Bilbo still asleep, though, or has he, too, vanished? Thorin paces the western hall for a good half hour, eyes on Bilbo’s bedroom door. No sound, no movement. Wearing a line on the floorboards, in the long morning shadows, it’s all too easy to think that something has happened, something has gone wrong, and he hasn’t been paying enough attention. Full of worry, enough to break the bounds of propriety, Thorin steps forward and turns the knob, opens the bedroom door. It takes his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness—the shutters are drawn across the window—but then he can see a head of blonde curls, sheets drawn up to the soft turn of a nose, the lump of a body curled in on itself beneath the blankets.

So his worry was unfounded, and now he’s just a guest who’s disturbing his host’s rest.

It isn’t until Thorin’s stepped back into the hall and is pulling the door shut behind him that he pauses. Is it Bilbo, lying in bed there? Or is it Bo? They look so similar, so uncannily alike. What if Bilbo has gone off again, back into the wood or elsewhere? He could be in trouble, stuck somewhere. Hurt. Or he could be sleeping peacefully. Which is which? Where have they gone? Whatever the case, one of them is where the other is not, and Thorin can’t simply walk away without knowing. He opens the door again, walks over to the bedside, trying to soften his steps as best he can. The shutters creak as he nudges them open. Cast in the gentle morning sun, the Hobbit’s hair is copper-gold. Thorin’s fingers are reaching for it before he’s even aware and only the sight of blue-green eyes opening to meet his gaze stops him. As Bilbo blinks, Thorin jerks his hand back, forces it down to his side.

“Thorin?” Bilbo asks. “What . . . ?”

“Sorry,” Thorin says, his voice tight.

“Is it morning already?” Bilbo sits up, the blankets falling around his waist. His arms, bared by his nightshirt, are tanned; his hands tremble. “I feel as though I haven’t slept at all.”

“It’s still early,” Thorin tells him, taking a step back from the bedside. “You should rest.”

“The trouble is,” Bilbo says, yawning, stretching, “now that I’ve woken up, I’m hungry.” He blinks again, shakes his head—a lingering heaviness, something more than the fog of sleep, hangs around his shoulders—and swings his feet out of bed. “Shall we have breakfast? After all, I wouldn’t be a good host if I sent you off without a meal.”

“You have your appetite back, then. That’s good.”

“Hmm. Yes, I suppose I do. What do you know? Prim will be glad, at least.”

“You’re not glad?”

“Oh,” Bilbo waves a hand, and tugs his dressing gown off a hook on the wardrobe, “you know . . .” He trails off. He _is_ hungry, that much is true, but right now he’d rather have sleep than food. His muscles ache, as if he’d done hard labour yesterday; there are bruises on his collarbone, his knees, that he doesn’t remember getting. His right wrist is sore. Must have fallen in the Wood, Bilbo thinks, cinching his dressing gown tight, suddenly self-conscious. “I hope you’ll forgive the informality,” he says, a bit stiffly, brushing past Thorin to the more neutral space of the hall.

“Of course.” Thorin follows Bilbo to the kitchen, where the Hobbit pauses in front of the fireplace and stares at the wall. A minute passes, then two. “Bilbo? Are you sure you’re all right? I think you should sit down.”

“No, no, it’s nothing.” Bilbo turns, smiles.

Thorin frowns at him, and steers him over to a chair. “I’ll handle breakfast.”

“I couldn’t make you—”

“I’ll handle it,” Thorin repeats, his hands firm on Bilbo’s shoulders, pressing him down. “Stay there.”

The pantry yields up a basket of eggs, a loaf of dark-crusted bread, pots of jam. All of Prim’s offerings, Thorin guesses, gathering ingredients. There are rashers of bacon and salted pork, too; Thorin eyes them longingly, but knows better than to indulge himself. He’s going to make Bilbo breakfast, get the Hobbit back on his feet, and then he needs to be off. There is work to be done, money to be earned. A family to think about, above all else.

Thorin strikes a match, coaxes the small pile of kindling alight, and soon the kitchen hearth is warm and bright. As the kettle steams he slices bread and watches Bilbo, who is drowsing in his chair, head tipped down towards his chest. Thorin opens the window as he starts frying eggs. It’s going to be a beautiful day, clear skies, a light breeze, perfect May weather. Getting warmer, too. He should be moving on soon, if he wants to get farther East while the season holds, before the rains come.

Standing there listening to the sizzling of eggs and the soft whistle of the kettle, Bilbo’s muffled breathing with his nose tucked to his chest, Thorin doesn’t want to think about leaving. Getting on the road again will mean not only the loss of comforts—soft bed, steady fire, store of food—but the loss of company. That is, of course, the problem with staying in any one place too long: You grow attached. It’s only been a couple of days since he came to the Shire and already it is starting to seem like the sort of comfortable place he could spend endless weeks in, just for the peace. Bag End is probably the quietest place he has been for at least a year, if not more.

Erebor was never silent, not even in the dead of winter. There was always work to be done, always deeper holes to be dug. A city of thousands, working day and night, the pinnacle of industry, capital of trade. Thorin is used to sleeping to the steady ringing of hammers, to the crunch of metal on stone. When he first left the Blue Mountains on his own, he could never sleep at night. When they had all traveled together there was the soothing rumble of even breaths, of bodies shifting to get comfortable on whatever bare ground they had made their camp for the night. He has been too long without company. Even Dwalin’s snores would have been welcome, some of these past nights.

But Bag End’s quiet is of a different sort. It is welcoming, not alienating; its silence is just as steady as the noise Thorin is used to. Bilbo wakes as Thorin is scooping eggs onto a plate, and he smiles, incredibly soft. “Sorry,” he says, sheepish, rubbing a hand over his face.

“There’s no need to be sorry.” Thorin slides a plate over to Bilbo and takes his seat across from the Hobbit. “I should apologise for waking you.”

“I thought you did already? Oh, let’s just call it even. After all, you did make breakfast. I think that cancels it out, don’t you?”

“Agreed,” Thorin says, after giving Bilbo a long, considering look.

“Good. That’s settled, then.” Bilbo spreads jam over a piece of toast and takes a massive bite. He can see Thorin holding back laughter and glares as best he can at the Dwarf, unable to make a stern face with so much food in his mouth. After he swallows, Bilbo clears his throat and says, “You know, it’s considered rude here to remark upon your fellow breakfaster’s eating habits.”

“I . . . I didn’t mean to offend,” Thorin says, turning his eyes to the table instead.

“Well, now you know.” Bilbo chomps down again, enjoying the way Thorin looks shame-faced a little more than is strictly kind. After minutes pass and the Dwarf neither speaks nor meets his eyes, Bilbo sighs. “Oh, come on, I was only joking. You didn’t offend me. Though I will warn you that many Hobbits have far worse manners than I do, and are far quicker to take offense. Just so you’re aware. But really, stop looking as if you’ve done something awful. I was only teasing. I wasn’t serious.”

“No, it would seem you rarely are,” Thorin says, under his breath, stabbing his eggs with more vigour than is strictly necessary.

“Now you’re upset.”

“I am not.”

“No?”

“No.” Thorin takes a firm bite and looks up to meet Bilbo’s eyes from across the table. The glare on his face somewhat spoils his words. When Bilbo quirks an eyebrow at him, he feels his face flushing. “I don’t understand your humour,” he mutters. “Nor why it comes at the expense of others.”

“I suppose it’s because I’m not very nice.” Bilbo smiles, nothing of the softness from earlier on his face, and when Thorin looks at him blankly he asks, “Does that surprise you?”

“. . . I think you’re nice enough.”

“I think you have low standards. So there we are.” Bilbo takes a sip of tea. “Look, when I invited you to stay, I wasn’t doing it for you, really. I’ve been . . . selfish.” He drums his fingers on the sides of the teacup. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had company, and I thought I could use some.”

“So that’s all.”

“Well, I won’t say that you’re not better company than most. Very good eggs, for example. The tea could use some work though.”

“You’re teasing again,” Thorin says, hesitantly.

“You noticed.”

“I’m not slow.”

“Just not the quickest.”

Thorin has to stifle the growl that rumbles in his chest, angered at being mocked. Even if Bilbo is doing it with laughter in his eyes. “Enough,” he says. “Eat your breakfast.”

“Yes, sir,” Bilbo retorts, and takes another massive bite of toast. He has a supremely childish urge to stick his tongue out at Thorin, and is rather proud of himself for managing not to do so. Instead, he concentrates on chewing and swallowing and not choking. Thorin is still glaring at him, but there’s not much heat to it. “What are you doing today? More odd jobs?”

“Some farmer’s asked me to see to his plow.”

“Oh, who?”

Thorin shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Thorin, you need to know people’s names around here.”

“Not much point, when I’ll be leaving soon enough.”

“You’re leaving? When? Where are you going?” Bilbo twists in his chair to look at Thorin, who's stood up to go and stand by the fire, hands clasped behind his back. The Dwarf is a solid presence on the hearth, broad-shouldered even in a plain shirt, his hair twisted into a loose braid down his back. Never mind that it makes no sense; Bilbo doesn't want Thorin to go.

Thorin shrugs again. “Not sure when. Next day, day after that. I have . . . There are some friends I need to seek.”

“Gone and lost your friends, have you?” Bilbo asks, turning away quickly. Seeking refuge in rudeness.

“Something like that.”

After breakfast, there is an uncomfortable moment of uncertainty, Thorin standing at the doorway and Bilbo just inside. “If you--” Bilbo starts to say, just as Thorin clears his throat. “Sorry, sorry,” Bilbo says, and Thorin shakes his head, gestures for Bilbo to go first. “If you'd like, we could meet up for a pint later. At the Dragon?” Bilbo looks at his toes as he speaks. His feet are strangely dirty. Thorin doesn't seem to notice, or care—he's staring at a spot just over Bilbo's head.

“I don't know that I'm welcome there anymore.”

“Of course you are.”

Thorin lowers his gaze to meet Bilbo's, skeptical, one eyebrow raised. “All right then,” he says evenly. I'll meet you there. Sundown.”

“Splendid.” Before Bilbo can say anything more, Thorin's gone, down the path to the garden gate and out into Hobbiton.

Alone in Bag End once again, Bilbo can't escape the feeling of some impending doom. Something he has, however inadvertently, set into motion. Gandalf's words come back to him and he resolves to go and talk to the Old Took. Meeting Thorin at sundown is a risk. It's probably a mistake, too. But something isn't right.

“I'm not letting you take tonight,” Bilbo tells the empty air. But what about last night? He can't fix what's already happened, whatever it was. The exhaustion he feels, the bruises he can't recall getting, the strange way Thorin had looked at him in his bedroom, let alone the fact that Thorin had been in his bedroom—all of it points to something having happened. He doesn't know what, or how, but there's a growing realisation in his mind that he's doing things at night that morning brings no memory of. Sleepwalking isn't unheard of in Hobbiton, someone's son or daughter ending up in the hedges after a long night, but the cause is almost always put down to too much of one of two things: ale, or pipeweed.

What if he deliberately lets go of control tonight? Will it make a difference? What would Thorin think? He was a portrait of discretion over breakfast, not asking, not telling. Whatever Bilbo may have done last night, to leave dirt on his feet and stray leaves beneath his pillow, a dryness in his mouth, if Thorin knew anything he wasn't telling. But he must know. Perhaps the better strategy is to ply Thorin with ale or pipeweed, until he's relaxed enough to speak freely, in more than clipped sentences and stiff formalities.

“Right,” Bilbo says, swallowing hard, squaring his shoulders. “First things first.” Off to Tuckborough. He dresses in his best trousers and waistcoat, runs a brush through unruly bedhead, and picks out his favourite walking stick. As he sets out down the path he can hear, distantly, the ringing of a hammer. Thorin, somewhere down the hill, working some farmer's plow back into its proper shape. The sound soon fades and Bilbo lengthens his stride. He has a long way to go if he wants to get there and back by sundown.

Early summer sees the Shire at the height of its beauty: lush, almost unbearably green, smelling of earth and rain, the creeks full, bees loud in the glades. The path is cool beneath Bilbo's feet. He should have written ahead, probably, to announce his intent to visit. That's how things are done, in the old families. Simply dropping by isn't going to earn him any favours, but it will cause marginally less of an outcry with the Tooks than it would with the Bagginses.

The front door to the Great Smials is massive. Bilbo raises his fist and knocks, loudly, before he can talk himself out of it. One of his younger cousins opens the door—Bilbo doesn't recognise the girl, but she must be a cousin to some degree—and he gives her his most charming smile. “Good morning. I'm here to see your grandfather. Er, probably.”

The girl stares at him. She's a young one. He can almost remember her name.

“He's my grandfather as well,” Bilbo tells her, when she doesn't move from the doorway. “You and I are cousins.”

“Esmeralda, who's that at the door?” a man's voice calls from inside.

“Adalgrim, is that you? It's Bilbo.”

“Bilbo!” His cousin appears in the front hall, a barrel under one arm and a basket of apples beneath the other. “It's been ages since we've seen you. Come in, come in.”

“Thank you.” Bilbo sidesteps the girl and closes the door behind him. “Is the old man about?”

“Oh, sure, he's out in the back garden. Go on through. You'll stay for dinner, of course.”

“Of course,” Bilbo says, and forces a smile. “Just need a quick word.”

The halls of the Great Smials are long and winding, with windows cut into the side that looks out over the fields towards the Water. The wooden floors are warm underfoot, worn with age to a smooth finish. Bilbo traces his fingers along the curve of a wall, recalling the times he spent as a child running headlong to the pantries and back to steal food with a horde of his cousins, all of them grimy and laughing. He's much too mature now to do that, but the memory tempts him all the same. He's come too far to run away now, though.

“Hello, Grandfather,” Bilbo greets, coming up on the old man bent over a sapling in his garden.

The Old Took turns, squints through the morning sun at Bilbo. “Well, well,” he says straightening up. “Belladonna's son. Haven't seen you in years, lad, come closer so I can get a good look at you.”

Bilbo steps forward, hands in his pockets. He's never liked being scrutinised. The old man's eyes are a very clear blue, almost white. A shiver runs up Bilbo's spine and he forces himself not to break the gaze. The Old Took claps a hand on his shoulder with startling force.

“Plenty of Took in you yet,” he says, leading Bilbo over to a pair of chairs beneath the wisteria. “What brings you here today? No trouble, I hope?”

“Actually, a bit of trouble. This is . . . going to sound strange, and you might not believe me, but I'm hoping that you can give me some answers. Did my mother ever speak with you about me?”

“Certainly. I like to keep up with the family. Tradition, you know, is very important amongst the old families. Why, my father—”

“I don't have much time, I'm afraid. Sorry, Grandfather. I don't mean just regular talk. Did she ever, hmm, ask you about anything odd?”

“Your mother had a variety of interests, my boy, many of them odd.”

“No, no, I mean . . .” Bilbo leans forward in his chair, clasps his hands together. “I know this sounds absurd. But do you know anything about a family curse?”

“Curse? Nonsense.” The Old Took coughs and glances around the garden. “I wouldn't call it a curse.”

“So you would call it . . .”

“A complication. It's not something to talk about in the open air. Too many curious little ears, if you know what I mean.”

Looking around the arbor, Bilbo can see the same small cousin who stalled him at the front door. “I do,” he says slowly. “Could we continue indoors?”

The Old Took studies Bilbo, lips pressed together, pale eyes steady. “I believe it's time for tea,” he says, loudly enough to be overheard. “We'll take it in my study.”

Over seed-cake and some very excellent tea, surrounded by the records of generational history, Bilbo learns that there is something amiss on the branches of the Took family tree. Something unusual that crops up, every now and again, with no real pattern or reasoning. A quirk of personalities. “The black sheep of the family,” the Old Took calls it, and his smile is kindly but Bilbo feels a chill all the same. “I always suspected it would be your mother, but then she settled down with that Baggins fellow, as solid a Hobbit as any I could have asked for. I'm sorry, Bilbo.”

“Sorry? Why are you sorry?”

“I should have looked in on you sooner. I'm afraid I've left you to deal with this on your own. The years since your mother died have been difficult for me, but you can't have had it easy yourself. As the patriarch of this family, I hold myself responsible.” The Old Took sets down his tea and steeples his fingers together. “You've been having trouble sleeping. Strange dreams, no dreams, unexplained memories, yes?”

“Yes.”

The Old Took nods sagely. Then, just as he seems to be acting as the definition of the wise, all-knowing patriarch, he says, “I wish I could tell you more.”

“What?”

“I said, I wish I could tell you more.”

“No, no, I heard you, but . . . What?”

“All I know are the symptoms. Not the cause. It's an old strain of madness, the Took family secret. Can't talk about it. Not proper dinner table talk, you understand.”

“We're not at the dinner table.”

“I've never experienced it myself. My grandfather was the last to be afflicted. Curious episodes as a child, a surge of courage during goblin raids . . . Most of it has passed into legend. The problem with family secrets, of course, is that everyone is eager to keep them. Reputation, lad. It is the great currency of our kind.” The Old Took rises from his desk and moves to the window. “I must ask that you do your part in maintaining it.”

“You mean, I shouldn't go asking questions?”

“And you shouldn't go offering answers.”

“What am I supposed to do, then?”

“As far as I understand it, whatever it is you're experiencing comes to a head during your adolescence. Why it should continue for you, well past your coming-of-age, is anyone's guess. All I know is that, given enough time, it will fade.”

“How do you know?”

“Tradition dictates it. Though, there's always a first.”

“That's . . . very reassuring.” Bilbo runs his hands through his hair, rubs at his nose. “Right. Well, if you really can't tell me anything more, I should be going.”

“I am sorry.”

“Yes, you said.” Though he knows he shouldn't take out his frustrations on an elderly man, Bilbo can't help the annoyance in his voice. The Old Took's face is kindly in its concern as he bids Bilbo farewell from the doorway, and Bilbo feels like an awful grandchild for being so rude as to not stay for dinner, but then they've already agreed that what they had to discuss wasn't fit for the dinner table.

All things considered, it's been a fairly pointless day. A good long walk, yes, but minimal news and even less advice. Given time? How much time is he meant to give it, exactly? This has been happening for too many years to believe that it will simply fade away. And short of tasking someone to keep watch over him at night, he still has no idea what actually happens—if anything at all. That's the other thought that's started to creep into his mind, that this is some elaborate dream, that he's going a little bit mad. Everyone has always said that there's a strain of something in the Took family, something peculiar. He would have thought the solidity of the Baggins family would balance it out, but then his father was far from perfection, according to most of his relatives. Their low opinion, collectively, of his parents is exactly why Bilbo's always avoided their company, and it's also why he won't say anything to them now. Even if they might have some answers, the insult he's sure to suffer isn't worth it.

Time. Well, he has until sundown. Will that be enough time?

 

\-----

 

Thorin wipes the sweat from his brow as he approaches the Green Dragon. He's still in his work apron; his hands are filthy, his arms sore. The sun is setting over the hill, casting a red glow across the low-hanging clouds. When he opens the door to the inn, the Hobbits all stare at him, but none make any protest. At a table in the corner, staring out the window, is Bilbo. Thorin ducks into the washroom to clean himself up as best as he can, and frowns at himself in the looking glass until he feels suitably reassured that his time amongst the Hobbits hasn't dulled his determination. Still, there's some part of him that feels unsettled as he drops stiffly into the seat across the table from one particular Hobbit, with honey-brown hair falling into his eyes and a quick, surprised grin.

“You're here,” Bilbo says.

“I am.”

“And I'm here.” Bilbo shifts his chair, deliberately turning from the window and the tinted skies.

“All we're missing is ale, then.” Thorin waves over one of the servers. “Two pints,” he says, “and whatever you have to eat.”

“Just the ale for me, thank you,” Bilbo interjects.

“You've eaten already?” Thorin asks.

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

“Don't look so suspicious. I have.”

“If you say so.” The server returns with their pints and Thorin takes a long drink of ale, savouring the taste.

Bilbo downs half his pint in one go, not to be outdone. “So,” he says, and takes a short breath, a brief glance around the room. “Are you still leaving tomorrow?”

“Unless someone offers me work tonight, yes. Judging by the state of the company in here, I'd say that's unlikely.”

“Present company excluded,” Bilbo says, and when Thorin raises an eyebrow he adds, “I'm offering you work. Tonight.”

“Really? Don't tell me you've broken your door again.”

“No.”

“Then, your garden fence needs mending?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of . . . guard duty.”

“I thought this was a peaceful place.”

“It is. Mostly. I'm a bit of an outlier.”

“You're not worried about being robbed in broad daylight, are you? What could I possibly guard tomorrow? Your pantries?”

“I wasn't talking about daylight. I said I was offering you work tonight.” Bilbo finishes his pint and orders another with a nod to the bartender before turning back to Thorin. There is a tightness coming over his shoulders that he does his best to ignore. “Tonight.”

“A thief in the night,” Thorin says, his hand going for his axe on instinct.

“Only if I'm the thief.”

“What do you mean?”

“I . . . This is going to sound ridiculous but seeing as you made me breakfast and rescued me from a tree, I may as well as you for one more favour. I think I'm sleepwalking. I need to be sure, and I can't do it on my own.”

“Where would you go?”

“It's not so much where.” Bilbo takes a breath, puts his hands flat on the table to steady himself. The sun is nearly set. “It's whether I go at all. Will you stay and stand watch?”

“You want me to watch you sleep?” Thorin asks, leaning in over the table. The back of his neck feels warm. He's certain every Hobbit in the inn is staring at them.

“Er, yes?” Bilbo ducks his head, grateful when his second pint arrives along with Thorin's dinner. “Yes.”

“Why would you want me to do that?”

“I have to be sure.”

“No, I meant, why not ask your cousin? Some other trusted family member? We've barely met.” Thorin wouldn't trust a stranger to watch him as he slept, no matter how pleasant their company had been the day before. Even if they had—however unlikely it is to consider--saved him from harm.

“I can't ask anyone else. It's something of a sensitive family matter. Will you do it? I promise I'll pay you for your time.”

“It's not a question of money,” Thorin lies. Of course it's a question of money. It always is. But this time, it's also more. He eats the meal before him, typical Hobbit fare, roasted meat and vegetables, fresh bread, some kind of sauce he can't identify, and while he eats he watches Bilbo drink, watches the shadows fall over Bilbo's face, watches Bilbo watch him back. The first stars prick the sky, barely visible. Bilbo clenches his jaw and orders another pint. Drinks it, and stares, and drums his fingers on the table in an uneven rhythm. After the next pint, his hands fall still.

“I'll do it,” Thorin says, when the last light of the sun has gone and darkness has washed over the hills. When Bilbo's behaviour has moved into worrying territory. “Let's go.”

“Not yet,” Bilbo says. “I'll have another ale.”

“You've had enough. Come on.” Thorin leaves a handful of coins on the table and, when Bilbo makes no move to stand, hauls the Hobbit up by the elbow and pushes him in front, steers him out the door. Bilbo is unsteady on his feet, weaving through the crowd that stands between them and the door. Thorin keeps hold of his arm, keeps him in his sight, drawing himself up to his full height at the questioning gazes and unsavoury looks they get as they leave the inn. Whether it's his stance or the weapons he carries, no one gives them any trouble, though muttered condescencion follows them out, a clear huff of “Good riddance” as Thorin lets the door slam shut.

“There's no need to push,” Bilbo says, trying to shrug out of Thorin's grip.

“You hired me for guard duty. As your guard, I'm seeing you home.” Thorin leads them down the path to Bag End, annoyed with himself more than with Bilbo. The candlelight from the windows they pass casts a golden haze on Bilbo's head and shoulders even as the brightening moon is cold, silvery light stretching across the fields and fences.

“You're no fun.”

“No,” Thorin agrees, and comes to a stop at Bag End's door. “Your key?”

“In my pocket.”

“Are you going to use it?”

“No.” Bilbo clasps his hands behind his head and looks up at Thorin, challenging. If Thorin backs away now, then he definitely won't last the night. “You're the blacksmith. Surely you don't need a key.”

With a soft swear, Thorin reaches into Bilbo's waistcoat pocket and pulls out the key. “I'm not a locksmith,” he grumbles, letting them inside and bolting the door after them. Rather than reach into Bilbo's pocket again, he leaves the key on a table in the front hall. “You might have told me not to let you drink so much, if I'm truly on guard duty. I assumed you knew your limits.”

“I'm not drunk.”

“Obviously not,” Thorin says, stifling a laugh as Bilbo trips over the carpet on his way to his bedroom.

“Just . . . sit there,” Bilbo points to a chair across from his bed, “and don't move. Don't let me move.” The room is spinning before him, fading in the way it always does when the switch is coming on. The ale is a convenient excuse for his lack of control, though it won't do him any favours come morning. But what will morning hold?

“And if you do?”

“Stop me.” Through the haze of his vision, the ringing in his ears, Bilbo finds his words coming out as more of a plea, less of a statement. He sits down heavily on his bed, tugs his suspenders down over his shoulders but doesn't bother undressing. “I swear if you try anything . . .” he says, to whoever might be listening, now that night has fallen.

Thorin flinches. “On my honour--” he starts.

“Not you,” Bilbo says, his voice straining. “No. The other one. Don't let me-- Don't let me go.”

“What do you mean?” Thorin steps forward as Bilbo falls back into his pillows, eyes closed tight. Asleep, and fighting it. “You make no sense.” He paces the room, arms crossed over his chest. Don't let Bilbo move, don't let him go. Should he tie the Hobbit down? That's one way to prevent sleepwalking. It seems cruel, though. To bind him like a prisoner in his own home, never mind if it was at his request. Not that it matters, as Thorin isn't in the habit of carrying rope, and short of stripping Bilbo's curtains of their ties, he has nothing at hand. Of all the odd jobs he's taken since Erebor fell, this ranks among the oddest. Definitely not one to mention in his next letter back to the Blue Mountains. Even disregarding the dubious role he has to play in all of it, he doesn't want to have to answer the questions that would follow.

With a long sigh and a stretch of tired shoulders, Thorin settles in for a long, sleepless night in the hard-backed chair, watching Bilbo sleep next door to where he spent his last night watching Bo not sleep. The peculiarity of the situation is not lost on him, no, but more uncomfortable than the chair is the fact that Thorin could not say, were anyone awake to ask, which night he preferred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is short and leaves off with a lot of unanswered questions still (sorry), but I wanted to get some kind of an update out there, however small, since it's been ages. Between my computer dying and the tripartite balancing act of teaching/coursework/candidacy exams, anything not essential has fallen by the wayside. This story is definitely not abandoned, but I have had to step away from it for a while to deal with real-life things, and I'm sorry for the resulting gap in updates. Not much I can do about it, as this semester is crucial for my degree, but I'll try my best to keep working on this when I get a couple of free moments here & there and piece together the next chapter. My apologies also for the change in formatting; OpenOffice, for whatever reason, doesn't record tab indentations the same was as MS Word and I don't have the time to fix it in the text box on Ao3. Thank you so much for your patience, and thanks, as always, to thehobbitpanda for this prompt & the accompanying art! Please be sure to check that out; links in previous chapter notes & story notes.


	5. Chapter 5

Bilbo tosses beneath the blankets, his limbs feeling unnaturally heavy. Though he is asleep, or mostly asleep, and should not be seeing anything, still there is a shadow behind his eyes. If he tries, he can just barely make out shapes, silhouettes, someone sitting in a chair by his bedside. More than that, there are murmurs in the air, all voices he does not recognise, except for one. Thorin, sitting bent forward in the chair, elbows resting on his knees, is whittling something with slow strokes of a knife and humming. Bilbo wants to say something to him. He tries to sit up, and is astonished when he does.

            “Bilbo?” Thorin asks. He sets aside his carving and leans in. “Are you awake?”

            “Yes,” Bilbo says, when he means to say no. “Just need a drink of water.” His legs swing out of bed, and his feet hit the floor.

            “Stay there,” Thorin says. “I’ll get it.”

            “No, I’ll go.” One step, then two; Bilbo is almost at the door.

            “Bilbo.” Thorin stands to block his way. “Are you really awake?”

            “Of course.” He feels his lips move, the light stir of his own voice, but it’s all pretense. Someone else has taken over. His lips pull into a tight smile. “Don’t be silly, Thorin. I’ll just be a moment.”

            “Get back in bed.” Thorin advances on Bilbo with worry in his eyes and though Bilbo’s face doesn’t lose its false smile he is—privately, immensely—relieved as Thorin steers him back to bed, tucks the blankets up around him, and stands there glaring with his arms crossed. Defeated, Bilbo finds himself falling quiet, and lets out a sigh as his vision clears. There is just enough candlelight for him to make out what Thorin is carving: a spoon, wide and flat, with delicate markings on its handle.

            After Bilbo falls asleep, or continues to sleep but calmer now, Thorin catches himself staring at the Hobbit rather than watching his fingers and the knife. It’s hardly a problem; he’s been carving since he could hold a blade and has yet to cut himself. But he’s not usually so careless. If it weren’t for the quiet whisper of breath and occasional rustle of sheets, Thorin could almost pretend Bilbo wasn’t there. As it is, though, he cannot take his gaze away. The gentle turn of Bilbo’s nose, the way his hair falls across his forehead, one exposed ear with a soft point at its tip, dark shadows beneath his closed eyes. Though the Hobbit looks young, and almost certainly is young compared to Thorin, there are lines on his face that belong to someone with many more years. Someone who has seen many worse things than could possibly be common to the Shire.

            “What is wrong with you?” Thorin asks, turning away from Bilbo to survey the room. Nothing seems amiss. He goes back to his carving, making a neat pile of woodshavings between his boots. As far as guard duties go, this is one of the easiest watches he’s ever taken. No orc raids, not even a pack of wargs. Just one Hobbit, looking exhausted and somewhat ill, and a growing list of unanswered questions. What kind of family matter is this, that keeps Bilbo worried for his own safety? Had something happened to him, the night before? But Thorin hadn’t heard anything, and he’d been just next door. He shifts in the chair, uncomfortable at the memory of his behaviour, how shameful it now seems, inviting in a relative stranger for those kinds of relations in the house of his host, without the host’s knowledge. Not that it would have been better if the host had known.

            The fact that Bilbo looks so alike to Bo now strikes Thorin every time he glances at the Hobbit. How did he not notice it earlier? Being in the Shire has dulled his senses after. So much so that he jumps out of his chair and brandishes his carving knife, rather than his sword, out in front of him when there is a tapping at the windowpane. Silhouetted against the starry sky is a raven, black as the night, regarding him with what looks an awful lot like disdain. Thorin slips his knife into its sheath and goes to let it in. The raven alights on the mantel and preens for a moment, adjusting its wings before rotating its head slowly around the room.

            “Well?” Thorin asks it, crossing his arms over his chest to keep from fidgeting. Unless he’s mistaken, this is his sister’s raven, which means news. But what kind of news?

            “I bring greetings from Lady Dís of the Blue Mountains,” the raven croaks. “She bids you read this message.” And it holds out a leg, onto which a tiny scroll of paper has been tied. “And send word in reply.”

            “Very well,” Thorin tells it, untying the scroll. “You may tell her I’ve received the message.” When the raven does not leave, but ruffles its feathers as if settling in for the night, Thorin groans. “If you must stay, there are plenty of trees outside.” It still doesn’t leave. “Useless bird.”

            The raven tucks its head to its breast and closes its eyes. Thorin has been summarily dismissed by his sister’s envoy. With nothing else to be done, he latches the window again, draws the shades, and settles back down in the chair to read. The raven dozes. Bilbo flinches beneath the blankets, abruptly, and then lies still again. The scroll is written in Dís’s neat handwriting, the Khuzdul runes sharply inked.

>             _Thorin,_
> 
> _You’ve been gone long enough. There’s work to be done back here, just as well as there is out there. Come home. The boys have been asking after you, and with summer coming on we could use your help with the harvest. Don’t frown so, as I’m certain you are right now. We have had more than enough years to adjust to this way of life. Finish up whatever work you have taken on, make sure they pay you, and then return._
> 
> _Until then,_
> 
> _Dís_

            Thorin crumples the scroll in his fist and frowns. Dís is right to suspect it. He despises harvesting, bringing in the crops and sowing seeds as if he were a farmer rather than a warrior. Rather than a king. It’s beneath him, gathering up summer squash in his shirtsleeves, working beside peasant Men, scraping a living out of soft green earth rather than hard rock. He has to take a moment to control his breathing before he can smooth out the scroll and turn it over to write a reply on the back. Feeling slightly guilty, Thorin rummages through Bilbo’s desk drawers for a quill and ink. The Hobbit has an awful lot of papers—letters, ledgers, books, journals filled with fine, round writing. Thorin is tempted to read them, but he’s already intruded enough on his host’s privacy. With as much discretion as can be had, when one is sitting in another’s quarters as they sleep, Thorin takes a seat at the desk and writes his reply.

>             _Dís,_
> 
>             _You know as well as I do that those mountains will never be “home.” I wish you would stop calling them that. As for my work, I am in fact nearly finished. I would have started for home today, if . . . ~~There is someone here who~~ Tell the boys that I’ll be there soon. There are some things I must take care of before I can let myself leave this place, but I am not far from the mountains so the journey will be short. _
> 
> _I remain, as ever,_
> 
> _Your brother_

            What Thorin doesn’t say is that even if his work is done, even if there were to be no more jobs in all the Shire, he does not think that he could simply pack up his things and leave come morning. He ties the scroll up neatly and wakes the raven, who grumbles at him before sticking out a leg to take the message. Once the bird has been dispatched, Thorin checks on Bilbo. Asleep, but not looking very happy about it. So that makes two of them, unhappy, in one room. Thorin was sorely tempted to write to Dís about what’s truly keeping him here, but when he started to pen the name his quill stopped after forming the first rune. What would follow the “B”?

            It shouldn’t even be a dilemma. He’s not meant to desire two partners equally, to be torn between the two. Dwarves find one single partner to form a bond with, and there is very little deliberation involved. It’s simply part of their nature. Or at least, that’s what he’s always been told. And as the king, it would be very poor form for him to be the first to break that tradition. Besides, why should he be putting Bilbo and Bo in the same position, when he’s slept with one and merely imposed upon the other as an unplanned guest? They’re not equal at all. There should be no question in his mind.

            And yet . . . and yet . . .

            Thorin paces the bedroom, his hands going to tangle in his hair, fretting. He needs to leave, before this gets any worse. He’s going to make a fool of himself if he stays.

            He already has made a fool of himself. Standing here, in his shirtsleeves and trousers, barefoot in another man’s bedroom while said man sleeps, it’s appalling behaviour. He wasn’t raised to act this way. Not only is it unlike a king, it’s unlike a gentleman. Deposed though he may be, living in exile, Thorin should know better. Bilbo had even told him—pleaded with him—not to make any untoward advances. Looking over at the Hobbit, it’s impossible not to notice how much smaller he is, how much frailer. For all that he’s as well rounded as his kin, there is something thin about Bilbo, in the lines of his face and the angles of his elbows and the paleness of his skin.

            This is none of his concern. Thorin has lived all his life without having anything to do with Hobbits beyond the briefest business, and he can live the rest of it just the same. He’ll wake Bilbo in the morning, make his excuses as civilly as possible, and be on his way.

            Of course, things don’t turn out to be that simple.

 

\---- 

 

Bilbo wakes up at the first light of dawn. Restless, uneasy, he sits up and sees that Thorin has fallen asleep, slumped in the chair with his head tipped back against the wall. It’s no surprise, considering how hard the Dwarf had worked the day before, and Bilbo certainly doesn’t blame him. It seems that he did what he was asked to do, at least. Bilbo is waking up in his own bed, with no dirt under his fingernails or scrapes on his feet. With vague, but present, memories: movements and words that were not his own, last night, and the impossibility of fighting them. He knows enough, now, to know that he cannot stay here. Whatever it is that’s been plaguing him will return, and he can hardly live under watch all hours of the day and night. He’s proved his theory, that something comes over him which he cannot control, and the ease with which the switch happened, and his own powerlessness in the face of it, and the unpleasantness of the mood inside his mind . . . No, he cannot stay.

            Hobbits can be incredibly quiet creatures, when they want to be. Bilbo packs his rucksack and slips out of the bedroom soundlessly. Thorin has one hand curled loosely around the handle of an axe, and is presumably a light sleeper, but he does not stir. Moving quickly, so that he has no time to feel guilty, Bilbo wraps some bread and cheese for himself, a couple of apples, and writes a quick note. It is the height of poor hosting, to leave before your guest is even awake. So it doesn’t matter much that Bilbo sticks the note to Bag End’s front door with one of his kitchen knives before he goes. He may as well break all the rules. Horrify all his neighbours enough so that their whispers of “Mad Baggins” overtake any good reputation he may once have had, so that they all stay away from Bag End, so that no one comes prying into his affairs.

            The mists are still clinging to the hills as he sets off, making for Bree and lands beyond, where no one will know him. Where it won’t matter who he is, or becomes, or might be. Bilbo takes a deep breath and rubs his hand over his eyes. “Right,”  he tells himself. “Come on. This is for the best.”

            It’s not as though he’s never left the Shire before. He used to travel all over the area, long walking holidays and overnight stays, journeying far more afield than was considered proper for a Hobbit of his position. So this should be as simple as putting one foot in front of the other. Bilbo tries to trick himself into believing that he’s not really leaving with the intent never to return, but Bag End tugs at him from the back of his mind. What’s more—and more perplexing—Thorin’s face keeps coming up in his memories, the hard lines of his profile against the early light of Bilbo’s bedroom wall, the inexplicable fondness not quite masked by the gruff tone of his voice as they made their deal in the Green Dragon, the tumble of dark hair shot through with grey. Bilbo has never noticed so many things about one person before. It’s exhausting, keeping them all in his head. It’s exhausting and he doesn’t like it, doesn’t want it, doesn’t even know when it started. The switch was more than enough to deal with. Now he has this . . . interest, this infatuation, this desire as well, and if he’s being honest he’s running away from more than one thing right now.

            The road to Bree is long but well traveled. He shouldn’t run into any problems. Once arrived, he’ll take a room for the night, and plan out where to go the next morning. Even if he has to keep moving, become some sort of nomad, it’s better than standing still and watching all the things he thought he knew become unfamiliar to him. If he is to become a different person, let him be in a different place as well. Let him entirely reinvent his life.

            Yes, it’s for the best, Bilbo thinks, as he hitches his pack up on his back and lengthens his stride.

 

\----

 

It’s the silence in the room that wakes Thorin. He’d fallen asleep just before dawn to the soft sound of Bilbo’s breathing, unable to keep his own eyes open. Most of the night had passed, and without incident, so he let himself fall into a light doze, his senses on half-alert. And now he wakes, hand on his axe, heart pounding, to an empty bed and an empty smial. No sign of Bilbo. The fire in the kitchen is cold, the bath is empty, the front door is shut. Shut, but not bolted. Thorin opens it and steps outside, glaring at the neighbouring Hobbits in their gardens. Did one of them take Bilbo away? He’s about to go interrogate the nearest one when a glint catches his eye: a kitchen knife stuck into the door, nearly to its hilt, pinning a note to the wood. Thorin wrenches the knife free and scans the note. It’s Bilbo’s writing, the same as was in his ledgers. He’s gone away, he says; called away unexpectedly by some ill relatives, and won’t be returning for quite some time. Thorin is to let himself out and give the keys of Bag End to a man called Gamgee—likely the neighbour Thorin has been staring down as the man crouches in front of his tomatoes, looking concerned. Thorin scowls and strides back inside, slams the door shut behind him.

            He’d decided last night to leave. Now Bilbo has told him to leave. And now leaving is the last thing he wants to do. This is ridiculous. He’d already made up his mind; the note should be encouraging, not conflicting. And it would be, if not for the sound of fear in Bilbo’s voice last night, as he told Thorin not to let him leave. Some guard Thorin has turned out to be. Dwalin would have his head, if he pulled a stunt like that while on the King’s Guard. Never mind that _he’s_ the King. It’s unacceptable. He cannot leave, unless it is to go and find Bilbo, and bring him back here, and figure out whatever it is that’s going on with him and with Bo and why everyone in the Shire apparently expects it of Bilbo, to do something like this. Because that’s what he’d said, in his note: “Don’t worry about me. My neighbours have been counting down the days till I would go running off, so you can just let them think that until I return from my relatives. I don’t know how long I’ll be. Please don’t trouble yourself, as I know you have family of your own to look after.” That would all be fine, if Bilbo hadn’t already told him that he has no close family. Certainly none close enough to running after before morning’s properly broken, coming off of a night of drunken confusion. None of this makes any sense, not in words that Thorin can put into order, but the feeling in his gut that tells him things have gone wrong is as sensible as it’s ever been. He dresses quickly in his traveling coat and leather traveling armour, laces up his boots, and locks up Bag End.

            “Look after these,” he tells the Hobbit by the tomatoes as he throws him the keys. “Don’t give them to anyone but Bilbo, or myself.”

            “Uhh, yes, sir,” the Hobbit says, but Thorin’s already walking away. Bilbo has at least an hour’s headstart on him, which isn’t much, but the Hobbit knows the terrain and, more importantly, which direction he’s headed. Thorin will have to guess.

            He stops in at the Green Dragon first, asks around if anyone’s seen Bilbo. No one has. Thorin is about to leave when he changes tactics and asks after Bo Took. That gets him a few shifty glances, and a casual hand running over the hilt of his sword brings one Hobbit forward who tells him that Bo had left a note for Thorin at the inn, after the Dwarf had already left. It’s an invitation to join Bo for supper, now two days old. Bo must have left it after leaving Bag End, the night that they . . . Thorin takes the note before the Hobbits can stare at him any longer, and leaves the darkened room to have some light to read by. Leaning against the wall outside, he scans the note. What it says is trivial, more words of flirtation and a jest at how quickly Thorin had fallen asleep afterwards. No, it’s not the content that has Thorin on full alert, but the fact that the handwriting is exactly the same as the other note he carries with him. The note Bilbo left him, stuck to Bag End’s door. A quick comparison of the two proves it. Side by side, they are identical, the curves of the B’s in the signatures matching up precisely.

            The Dwarves have no word for this, as there is no record of it ever affecting any of their kind, but Thorin has heard tales from the traders who come from foreign lands, stories of men who lose half of themselves and begin to lead two lives. It is something akin to madness, but more dangerous, for at least when one is going mad one’s companions usually take notice. For those who lose only part of themselves, only at certain times, they keep up the illusion and all are fooled, until one part overtakes the other and they are entirely changed. How this sort of curse got to be in Bilbo’s family, Thorin has no guesses, but he’s certain now, with a cold finality as he searches the length of the Shire, that the Bilbo who left him this morning was not entirely himself. Part of him—and the crucial question is how large a part—has to have been Bo. Feeling like a fool for not seeing it sooner, never mind that he’s only known them each a handful of days, Thorin shoves aside cornstalks and searches the fields, tramps through streams calling out each name in turn, not knowing who might answer.

            Why did none of Bilbo’s relatives or neighbours notice? But of course, they all thought him a bit mad already. Probably, to them, it just seemed that things were taking their natural course. It strikes Thorin suddenly, as he’s hacking his way through Bindbole Wood, that perhaps he’s thinking about it the wrong way; perhaps it’s Bilbo who takes over, and Bo who is being lost? But no, surely not, for Prim would have known her own cousin, and people would have recognised the name. In fact, today is the first time Thorin has met someone other than himself who even knew the name Bo Took. No, Bilbo must be the one, the one slowly losing hold of himself. That must have been what he meant, last night, pleading with Thorin not to let him go. Furious with himself for not living up to expectations, for not following through on his promise, Thorin makes his way through the Wood to that hollowed out tree where he found Bilbo once before. But though the clearing is the same, and the ground still slopes gently downwards into a mossy hollow, there is no hole now in the massive tree. There is no sign that there ever was a hole.

            Thorin takes his axe to the trunk, chopping away at the smooth expanse of bark and wood, but it is as solid as any tree. No hidden hollows. Just chipped wood, and uneven roots underfoot, and the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. Thorin is loathe to put the tree to his back, for some reason, but does so anyway as he turns to survey the forest. No glittering eyes, nor animal sounds. But the Wood is restless, just as it was before, leaves rustling and branches creaking, and Thorin wields his axe before him and runs, making as straight a path as he can. The path he had cut on his way in has vanished, or closed up, or moved. It’s impossible to say. He feels heat at the back of his neck, and the moss is spongy underfoot, making his steps awkward and unsteady. Bilbo cannot be in a wood like this. Could Bo?

            Breaking out into open fields and clean air, Thorin finds his momentum carrying him onwards, even as his lungs are burning. He slips on the grass and falls against a farmer’s fence, finally coming to a stop. Behind him, or beside him, for he’s fallen in a tangle of limbs, the forest looks quiet. Ridiculous, to be so frightened of trees, Thorin thinks, but there is a cut across the bridge of his nose and a ringing in his ears and all his senses are alight with the feeling of danger. He has been in enough battles to know that they do not all look the same. This is one he cannot fight, not even if he were to take a torch to the Wood. There is something there beyond what can be seen by the eye.

            Defeated by his search, Thorin heads for Bag End again. He can clean up, eat something to replenish his energy, and set off for the borders of the Shire and beyond. Bilbo’s neighbour, Gamgee, is seated on his porch when Thorin returns, smoking a pipe with his eyes closed. He jumps to his feet, startled, when Thorin clears his throat.

            “Oh, Master Dwarf,” Gamgee says, “you’ve returned.”

            “I’ll take those keys back,” Thorin says, holding out a hand.

            “Why, I’ve already given them back. To Bilbo, of course. He was in an awful mood when he came back here and couldn’t get into his own house. Couldn’t even persuade him to stop for a smoke. Hey, where are you going?” Gamgee calls after him, as Thorin turns and runs up the hill.

            He shoves the garden gate open and takes the steps two at a time. There are no lights coming from Bag End’s windows, though the sun has nearly set. “Bilbo!” Thorin calls, and pounds on the front door with a fist when it won’t open. “Bilbo! Open up!” It must be bolted from the inside, and Thorin knows the strength of these timbers, the security of the latch. He cannot open it unless he chops it down. “Bilbo!” he calls, and still there is no answer. “Bo?”

            Silence.

            Thorin lets out a curse, exasperated, and takes his axe in hand. He swings at the door and the blow thuds against the wood with a dull, dead sound. Thorin feels the rebound jar his arms in shock. He knows his own strength. That swing should have buried the axe head in the wood, ruining his recent handiwork. But the cutting edge, he sees, has been worn to almost nothing, flat rather than sharp. Made useless by all his strikes at that tree in Bindbole Wood. Thorin throws his shoulder against the door. It does not even shake. “I know you’re inside. Open the damn door, you . . . whoever you are. Open up!”

            Still there is no answer. Other Hobbits have started to gather, staring at this wild-eyed Dwarf trying to batter down the front door of one of their most respected smials. Thorin growls at them and they scatter, taking refuge behind garden sheds and hedgerows. He makes a circuit of Bag End and can find no open door, nor any window large enough for him to fit through. Defeated by his own craftsmanship, Thorin slumps against the front door, breathing heavily. He closes his eyes, takes a long moment to calm the feeling of danger still surging through him, and draws his whetstone from a pouch on his belt. As night falls and the Hobbits go home, each to their own smials with soft golden light flickering from rounded windows, Thorin sits on Bag End’s doorstep and sharpens his axe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is probably only one more chapter after this, which is why I've changed the total chapter count from "?" to "6" now. Sorry that this one, 5, is a bit short. Between computer failure and the pressures of school, it's been very difficult for me to find any time to write. Still, I hope you enjoyed, and I'll do my best to wrap things up quickly because this is kind of a cruel cliffhanger.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

Deep within Bag End, in one of the seldom used back bedrooms, the one who calls himself Bo Took is pacing the floor. He knows Thorin is outside. Half the Shire has heard him pounding at the door, and the other half will know by tomorrow. The question is what to do about him. The obvious temptation is to let him in, of course. Let him in, and then never let him back out. Oh, eventually he might get tired of the Dwarf, but Bo expects he could be entertained for a long while. He doesn't have enough control yet to open the door, though. That's the problem. Somewhere, shouting into the void, Bilbo is fighting back. Bo can feel it in the thump of his heartbeat and the trembling of his fingers when he gets too close to the front door. Frustrated, blocked at every turn of the halls, Bo kicks over a small table in the sitting room, swipes rows of books off their shelves. He's stronger than Bilbo—stronger than any Hobbit has the right to be—and when he means to destroy, he does it well. Throws the cast-iron pot from the kitchen hearth, kicks the charred wood across the floor, knocks over chairs, empties out cabinets. Systematically, with the same precision as Thorin sharpening his axe, Bo tears Bag End apart.

From the doorstep Thorin can hear the noise of things breaking, crashing furniture and shattering glass and the creaking and bending of the smial's wooden braces and joists as the rooms themselves take a beating. More unsettling is the lack of any other noise. Bo has yet to make a sound. He must be furious, to do such damage, but he is silent. And he has taken care not to break any of the windows or doors that would allow Thorin access. It's fully dark now, clouds covering the stars and half a moon. Thorin runs the stone across the cutting edge of his axe one last time, and tests for sharpness on a stray branch from one of the shrubberies in the garden. The axe cuts cleanly through. Thorin pockets his whetstone and stands, takes a few steps back to adjust his swing. And then he sets to work chopping down the same door he'd raised only days before.

The firm “thunk” of his axe carries through Hobbiton, down silent lanes and across the Water. Thorin is only three swings in when he hears someone shout, “Stop!” and turns to see Prim running towards him, her skirts lifted up so she can take the garden steps two at a time. “Stop, Thorin, stop, what are you doing?”

“Breaking down the door,” Thorin says, his voice terse because it's obvious. He hefts his axe over his shoulder and adjusts his grip for another swing.

“But you just put up that door. And besides, can't you just knock?”

“Bilbo's not in there.”

“So you're breaking in to his house?”

“Someone else is in there. I have to get them out.” Thorin chops at the door once more. Prim grabs at his arm and tries to tug it down; he doesn't move. “Your cousin is in danger, Prim. Let go.”

“How do I know that you're not the danger? And how is Bilbo in danger if he's not in there?”

“He is there, but . . .” Thorin clenches his teeth. There's no time to explain. Bo's gone silent—probably he heard Prim's shout—but that's no guarantee that he's stopped tearing the place to pieces. And what of Bilbo? Thorin has this awful dread that the longer Bo stays, the harder it will be for Bilbo to return.

“I need you to tell me what you know,” Prim says. “Because you know something, something more than the rest of us do, and I don't know how or why but apparently Bilbo trusted you enough to let you in.” She looks Thorin in the eye, small and round and not anything like a warrior, except for her eyes. Thorin lets out a sigh and lowers his axe.

“Your family,” he tells her, “is full of secrets.”

“Every family has its secrets.”

“Do you know what's wrong with Bilbo?”

“He's been ill,” Prim says. “Fainting, forgetting to eat. Getting lost. He's . . . confused.”

“He's not himself.”

“That's one way of saying it, sure.”

“No, I mean he's _not_ Bilbo. Not entirely, not anymore. He wouldn't tell me the details but there's something in his history, his family, which is changing him. He's become . . . different.”

Prim frowns, and looks at Bag End's door, at the long gash splitting the center. “Different as in, more reckless?”

“Yes.”

“More unpredictable?”

“Yes.” Thorin frowns at her. “What do you know?”

“No one really talks about it. But we all— It's something to do with the mixing of bloodlines, different qualities from different lineages, and sometimes they don't blend well. Bilbo is one of those times, one of the outliers, or at least, that's the superstition. So we've always kept an eye on him. Those of us who care. Though, there aren't really many of us left now, what with his parents . . . What do you keep looking at in there?” Prim asks as Thorin puts his head against the broken door.

“I'm not looking. I'm listening. Earlier, he was— I met him as Bo. Bo Took, he called himself. He's the one who takes over, those other parts of Bilbo. He was angry earlier. Tearing Bag End apart. But he's stopped now.” Thorin presses his ear to the door and worries.

“Oh,” Prim says.

They wait, listening, tense. Nothing comes.

“That's, um, that's not good, is it?” Prim asks.

“No.”

“That's actually really troubling.”

“Yes.” Thorin takes another swing at the door and splinters his way through.

“All right, you go in the front, and I'll stand by the back. If he tries to get out, I'll stop him.” She looks determined enough that Thorin believes she would, too, as she pushes through the garden past overgrown plants and marches around to the back door. He widens the hole enough to shove his arm in and feels around for the latch. Bo has to know that Thorin is coming. Chopping the door open certainly made enough noise. Still, once Thorin's unlocked the door, he swings it open and steps in quietly. After pausing a moment to think, Thorin shuts the door behind him and re-fastens the latch. Prim might be able to stop Bilbo if he leaves by the back door, but Bo isn't going to leave.

Thorin isn't going to let Bo leave.

He sets his axe on an overturned chair beside the door. The halls are a mess of papers and furniture, wax spilled from candles and seeping into the floorboards. It's a wonder nothing has caught on fire. Thorin rights a table as he passes it, runs his fingers over long grooves in the wood, four parallel lines scratched deep through the varnish. When he sets his hand over the lines they are smaller than the pattern of his bones but the shape is the same. Turning the corner Thorin passes the kitchen, a sitting room, one of the pantries, all empty, all in disarray. Knowing that Bo must be somewhere inside, he presses on, searching through every room until at last his hand comes to a door that it cannot open.

“I know you're there,” Thorin says. “Talk.”

“Why should I talk to you? You like the other one better.”

“I like both of you.”

“Not true.”

“It is true.” Thorin feels around the edges of the doorframe, seeking out a weak point. If need be, he could probably kick it down near the lock. “Bo . . . open the door.”

“What will you do, if I open it?”

“All I want is to talk to you.”

“Liar. You're no good at talking.”

“But from what I gather, I'm the only one talking to you.” Thorin leans his forehead against the door. “You've torn Bilbo's home apart.”

“It's my home, too. I can treat it how I like.”

“What makes it your home?”

“Bilbo is mine now.” Bo's voice is low and soft through the door; Thorin tenses. “He's not coming back, he won't., not if I wreck the things he loved. His books, his arm-chair, if they're gone what does he have to come back for?”

“He has family.”

“Family. Hah. They don't care much for him anymore. His cousin might come by but she'll leave soon enough. She has family of her own.”

Thorin breathes in, out. Puts his weight against the door. “Me, then,” he says. “He has me.”

“You?” Bo laughs. “He's never had you yet. I'm the only one who can claim that.”

Not rising to the bait, Thorin repeats, “He has me. I'm not going to leave him, wherever it is you've sent him.”

“Would you even know the difference?”

“Yes.”

“Shall we make a bet on it?”

“Open the door and find out.”

Bo laughs. There is a thump against the door, a shudder through the wood, as if he has collapsed against it. Thorin presses his hands against the door, lays his palms flat and pushes as if he could get through. “Trust me,” he breathes. “Please.”

Who can say how long they stay there, each waiting for the other to make the first move? The light changes in the hall, from bright morning to soft golden afternoon, shadows creeping in around the corners. There is a cool draft from the broken door; a shiver finds its way up Thorin's back. He closes his eyes. If he concentrates hard enough, he can hear Bo breathing, or Bilbo fighting to breathe.

Quiet footsteps from the front hall make Thorin tense. He turns, slowly, and sees Prim silhouetted against the fading light. Her cheeks are red with cold; she looks like she may have been crying. “Is he . . . in there?” she asks quietly, gesturing towards the door. Thorin nods, and raises a finger to his lips. “Can I talk to him?” Prim whispers.

“Bilbo's not talking,” Thorin tells her, his voice in a hush. “How did you get in here?”

“Same way you did, reached inside and lifted the latch.”

“Go home. Let me handle this.”

“He's my cousin, Thorin.”

“And he's my . . .” Thorin frowns, lets out a sigh. “Just go. It's better if I do this alone.”

“Do what, exactly?” Prim asks. “What are you planning?”

“Go home, Prim. Now, before he hears you. Come back in the morning.” When Prim still doesn't move, Thorin turns his frown on her, a look he full well knows is capable of sending people running for the hills. To her credit, Prim merely looks taken aback, and after a tense moment she backs away carefully.

“If you do anything to hurt him,” she warns, the shake in her voice betraying her nerves. Thorin nods once, and turns back to the door in dismissal. Prim, probably against her better judgement, leaves the way she came. Thorin can hear the click of the latch behind her as she goes. Once more, he is alone with Bilbo, alone with Bo—the three of them are alone, together. There's nothing to do but wait.

Sometime before dawn there is movement from the other side of the door, enough to wake Thorin out of the doze he's fallen into. A soft groan shakes him to his feet. “Bilbo?” Thorin asks, apprehensive, not wanting to trust to his instincts. “Is that you?”

“Thorin? What's going on? Where . . . what happened?”

“Bilbo, are you hurt? Can you open the door?”

“Why am I locked into my study?” Bilbo's voice is rough and uneven.

“The lock's on your side,” Thorin says. “Bilbo, open the door.”

“What aren't you telling me, Thorin?”

“Please open the door.”

“There's . . . blood on my hands. What time is it? The last thing I remember, I was going . . . How did I get here?”

“Bilbo, please, open the door, I'll explain.”

“Not until I know I won't put you in danger. I don't, um, trust myself right now.” Bilbo laughs a little and Thorin tries, so hard, to picture the hobbit on the other side of the door. The only thing he can't make himself see clearly is the look that must be in Bilbo's eyes, still too-dark and shaky—all he wants to see is calm, warm, sea-blue.

“I trust you,” Thorin says. “You won't hurt me.”

“It's a moot point anyway,” Bilbo says, and Thorin hears him sniff, hears clothing rustling. “My hands won't seem to do what I tell them to. Can't even wipe all this off.”

“You have to fight it, Bilbo, come on. You're stronger than him,” Thorin says, and prays that it's the truth. Prays that the blood is superficial, that Bilbo isn't too badly hurt.

“Who?” Bilbo asks.

Thorin knocks his forehead against the door and swears. Even now, even after everything, Bilbo still doesn't understand?

“Thorin, who?”

“The one who takes over when you . . . when you let your guard down. That other voice in your head.”

There is silence. Then, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You do know,” Thorin insists. “You must.”

On the other side of the door, there is no reaction. For minutes and minutes Thorin waits, frets, thinks he's lost the stand-off again. And then, slowly, Thorin finds himself falling forward as Bilbo opens the door into the study. Catching his balance with hands against the doorframe, Thorin looks up to see Bilbo standing there in the shadows, half-hidden behind the door, his gaze cast down at the floor and the broken glass beneath his feet. There is a streak of blood across his cheeks, as if he tried to rub his eyes; there is blood on his hands and the cuffs of his shirt. He looks ten years older, at least. Thorin wants to gather Bilbo into his arms but is afraid to touch him. Bo had asked him if he would be able to tell the difference between the two and he had said yes but now he's not so sure.

“Bilbo?” he asks, pitching his voice low, taking a soft step closer.

“I'm frightened, Thorin.” The hobbit takes a step back, into the shaft of pale pre-dawn light coming in from the hallway, and Thorin can see now that it is Bilbo, not Bo, standing before him. He breathes a sigh of relief.

“You came back,” Thorin says, and reaches out. “Can I . . . ?” Bilbo closes the gap between them, sinking against Thorin's chest. “Thought I'd lost you,” Thorin murmurs, his words half-hidden in Bilbo's hair, speaking into the top of his head. “Don't do that again.”

“If I could help it, I wouldn't,” Bilbo says, and puts his arms around Thorin, leaning into the solidity. “But I don't know how. And I don't think I can just go through life never sleeping again. Besides, I'm not sure shutting it—him—out is the best idea.”

“Of course it is.”

“I'm not sure,” Bilbo repeats. “The switch is part of me.”

“So you did know,” Thorin says. “You knew someone else was taking over, you even have a name for it. You lied to me.”  
“I didn't lie. I'm not lying to you now.” Bilbo pushes away from Thorin and frowns up at him. “I call it the switch because it's as though I lose myself and something else comes in and swaps out, takes over. I never remember, not really, and I certainly never thought there was someone else running around with my face, my body, doing . . . who knows what. Tearing my home apart, apparently.” Bilbo looks down at his hands, scraped and bruised. “I've really made a mess of things, haven't it?”

“It's not your fault,” Thorin tries to tell him, but Bilbo shakes his head.

“No, no, it is my fault. Whoever else comes in and takes over my mind, he's my fault too. My body, my fault, right?”

Thorin does not tell Bilbo what he knows of his body, how it laid under his hands. He feels colour rising to his face and turns away. “It's not your fault,” he repeats, and suddenly hates himself quite a bit more for taking advantage, for not seeing things clearly enough. Some king he is.

“Thorin?”

“I'll . . . help you clean up. Your hands need bandaging. Come on.”

Thorin leads Bilbo through Bag End, around wrecked furniture and torn papers until they come to the kitchen. The sun hasn't even risen yet. Thorin rights a candlestick and lights it with the flint and knife from his boot. Bilbo picks up a bench and sits before the table, tracing his fingers over the gouges in the wood. “I did this,” he says, so quiet Thorin almost doesn't hear him. “This is my home and I . . . ruined it.”

“It's not ruined. We can fix it.”

“Why bother, if I can't figure out how to live with myself?” Bilbo asks, and it's a question that rings true in more ways than one.

They don't speak as Thorin draws water from the pump beside the sink and fills a basin, sits beside Bilbo and washes his hands and feet, dabbing away blood and shards of glass and wood. Bilbo won't meet his eyes as Thorin wraps bandages around his fingers, lets hands linger on the bones of Bilbo's wrists, trying to press forgiveness in through the skin.

“You'll figure it out,” Thorin says, as the sun is rising and they're picking up the kitchen, putting the front hall back together. Bilbo stares at the gash in his new front door, at the axe casually left in his entryway, and shakes his head.

“There are so many questions, I don't even know where to begin.”

“I'll answer anything I can,” Thorin offers, and Bilbo shakes his head again.

“I think I just need some time.”

There is time, and time, and still nothing makes sense. They're straightening up the parlour when Prim comes back, the sun pale-gold over Hobbiton and catching in her bright hair. She takes one look at them, gives Bilbo in a quick hug, and grabs a broom. Between the three of them they get Bag End back into somewhat respectable shape, the things broken beyond repair piled in the back garden for a bonfire.

“Someone needs to tell the Old Took what's happened,” Prim says as they step back and survey the mess, and when neither Bilbo nor Thorin moves she sighs. “May as well be me. Wish me luck, all right?”

“Luck,” Thorin tells her, and Bilbo only nods. His face is drawn; his shoulder shake as though he is cold, despite the warmth of the day. After Prim leaves they sit on the back step and look out over the garden. Thorin cannot keep from glancing over at Bilbo, as if to reassure himself that it still _is_ Bilbo hunched there beside him. And it is, but it's also Bo; he's Baggins and Took in one.

“Were you the only one?” Bilbo asks, vaguely, but Thorin knows what he means.

“Yes.”

“So I don't have to . . . explain things to anyone else.”

“Not if Prim's already gone to tell your family elder, no.”

“She felt it was her duty, I suppose.”

“You'd rather she didn't?”

“I'd rather none of this happened. Except, I suppose, you. Meeting you was the one good point in all of this.” And finally, finally, Bilbo turns and meets Thorin's eyes and his gaze is blue as the afternoon sky, hazy with autumn. And Thorin feels his heart rise, and clenches it down, and thinks he's going to be sick. Because he's leaving, of course—he has to leave. He's already stayed too long.

“Bilbo,” he starts, and then swallows his words. Brings a hand up to sweep his hair back—he's going grey already, and when did that happen?—and tries to start again. “Bilbo, I'm glad I met you. It's selfish of me, very selfish, but . . . I can't deny that.”

“Why selfish?”

“Because I'm leaving. I have to leave. I was never meant to stay here in the Shire so long.”

“But you can't leave! We've only just . . . Thorin, I need you here.”

“I'm sorry,” Thorin says, and now it is he who has to look away. “Bilbo, believe me, if it was anything else—”

“What is it, that you have to leave for?” Bilbo asks, tugging at Thorin's arm. “How long will you be gone? When can you come back?”

“In all likelihood, I won't be coming back. I'm sorry I can't tell you more—there are more lives than my own at stake. I cannot share our secrets, not even with you.”

“Haven't I shared mine? Thorin, there's—” Bilbo lets out a laugh, bitter and dry. “There's really very little about me that you don't know, at this point.”

“I'm sorry. There's something I must do, and the time is running so short. If I could tell you more, I would, but . . .”

There's never enough time, not really. They sit until the air turns chill, and then Thorin lights the bonfire and they sit and watch it burn. Time passes, just as quickly as it always has. There is so much unspoken between them, unspeakable—it will take years for them to find the words to fill the void that has opened up, twinned, in mind and heart, each of them straining and knowing what they want but not what they can have, what they might be able to achieve if only they had time.

Thorin does not think they have years. Realistically, he himself has only months, however long it takes to trek east, across the Misty Mountains, and die a fiery death at the dragon's mouth. If that is to be his fate, he will take it and leave all else behind. Especially Bilbo—he cannot lead Bilbo into such peril.

Bilbo, for his part—his own part, as Bo has fallen silent now—can only think in terms of minutes, hours, brief glimpses of time before he loses himself again. And yet he knows, with alarming surety, that he cannot just let Thorin walk away from him. And if Thorin will not stay, then Bilbo has no choice but to follow him.

And so, when dawn comes and Thorin, axe over his shoulder, steps out the front door of Bag End, Bilbo picks up his walking stick. He takes one last, long look around his home and sighs, taking in the patched furniture and salvaged crockery, the portraits of his parents over the mantel, all his memories there beyond the newly boarded-up front door. What he carries with him now is all that will fit in his rucksack, and whatever, whoever, may come into his head. Thorin turns at the garden gate and looks back at him.

“What are you doing?” Thorin asks, hesitant, confused, hardly daring to hope.

And Bilbo forces out a smile that grows easier the further away from his door he steps. Family history, family curses, Shire and memory—he's leaving all of that behind now and feels, somehow, lighter for it. Even in the back of his mind there is a sense of oncoming quiet, as if Bo, too, is pleased to be leaving, or going, or not returning. Bilbo cannot tell which and it worries him, it worries him that he is leaving so much to chance. But he looks at Thorin, standing there despite it all; he squares his shoulders, and keeps his smile on, and says, “I'm going on an adventure.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, after far more time than either of us (I think) thought, this fic is finally coming to an end and my wonderful HRBB artist has her conclusion. I hope you all enjoyed this take on a kind of alternate prequel, largely an excuse for character analysis and--one of my favourite things--putting two people in an enclosed space and seeing what comes of it. While there are parts of this story that I think I could've done differently, on the whole I'm pleased with what came of it. At its heart, I wanted to tell a story about uncertain people (two or three, depending on how you read it) who are drawn together, and how decide to proceed. Please let me know your thoughts, if you have time, and thank you so much for reading & for your patience throughout.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ewebean & pandamani for organising this, and to thehobbitpanda for such a great prompt to work with and wonderful art (more to come, with updates of the fic).
> 
> This prompt caught my attention because of the potential for exploring different characters' psychologies, and trying to work out a narrative voice for each of them. It's been a challenge to write, largely because of the timing--the end of the fall semester, when I'm finishing Ph.D. coursework, is not exactly the best time to start a new fiction project--but it's also been a lot of fun to figure out how this story might play out and still align with canon in the end. It also lets me play with Thorin in exile, bitter smithing, and being that kind of desperately driven figure who gets waylaid by a simple Hobbit (or two).
> 
> I hope you enjoy, and please check out thehobbitpanda's art as well (links in the notes at the start of the fic). I'm working on an 8tracks playlist for this, and I've also put together a [picspam](http://www.stick-around-town.tumblr.com/post/105386808686/starting-a-stone-chapter-one-a-jeykll-hyde), just for fun. As I'm headed into winter break, I hope to have updates for you fairly frequently; we're just getting started here. Thanks for reading!


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